Footnotes

This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Critique de l'Oeuvre Sculpté d'Auguste Rodin currently being prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2017-5262B.

Provenance
Musée Rodin, Paris.
Dominion Gallery, Montréal (acquired from the above in January 1966).
John Matthews, Ottawa (acquired from the above by 1988).
Thence by descent, and sold: Sotheby's, New York, June 8, 2017, lot 13.
Private collection, USA (acquired at the above sale).

Literature
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of the Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. II, Paris, 2007, fig. 5 (illustration of another cast p. 628).

As a stand-alone sculpture, Auguste Rodin's Faunesse debout, version au rocher simple catches the eyes of viewers. There are up to 21 existing proofs of the Faunesse fabricated by different foundries from 1890 to 1963. The dark, cool smoothness of the bronze emphasizes the creature's lithe body, recalling Rodin's famous affinity for bold depictions of nudity and sensuality in his works, especially those sculpted in the 1880s. While the diminutive Faunesse may be beautiful in her own right, she particularly shines when taking into account her place in one of Rodin's most famous and mysterious monuments, his final masterpiece La porte de l'Enfer or The Gates of Hell.

The Gates of Hell stand as an imposing set of doors, in a sense leading the viewer into an unknown and formidable landscape beyond. The doors were commissioned in 1880 by the French government to adorn the grand entrance of a planned museum of decorative arts located in Paris. For thirty-seven years until his death in 1917, the artist worked tirelessly to create, scrap, and recreate what would ultimately become the defining project of his career. He never finished the piece, and the museum ultimately was never built; but despite this, the building's unfinished entrance stands today as an emblem of artistic mastery and dedication.

Rodin drew upon a number of literary muses to create the narrative of his hellish piece. The most recognizable thematic influence is that of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy – in particular the first part, Inferno. The poet's fervent descriptions of Hell would inspire the chaotic energy present in Rodin's work, rife with writhing penitents and agonizing lost souls. Eventually, after continually altering his plaster scene for more than three decades, the figures no longer reenacted specific passages in the poem but retained the same sense of despair and poignant suffering.

Considering the doors, viewers recognize several figures: The Thinker, The Three Shades, or even The Kiss. Indeed, these celebrated motifs in Rodin's work were originally conceived as characters for his enormous Gates of Hell, only later enlarged and cast as unique works in their own right – much like the present lot.

The Faunesse can be found in the tympanum of the massive piece. There, viewers can observe the arrival of sinners into Hell. On the left, a wave of faunesses tumbles into the tableau from the world of the living; these are the newest inhabitants of the Inferno. Figures pop out of the tympanum's confines, climbing and entangling themselves in a fruitless attempt to escape their fate. Rodin's The Thinker is meant to preside over the tympanum, jutting out towards the viewer in his judgment of himself and of others. On the right, where a version of the present lot can be seen, more faunesses undergo the ultimate judgement, the decision to keep them in Hell for eternity. Faunesse debout, or the Standing Faunesse, bares her arm over her eyes, shielding herself from the horrors before her and possibly hiding her true feelings of shame at a life, mythologically-speaking, of lust and temptation.

The faunesses in the tympanum elegantly showcase Rodin's affinity for Greek and Roman mythology. Rodin had traveled through Italy in 1876, and there he discovered a love for the overabundance of Roman monuments and sculpted deities he saw there, which would influence his personal artistic style throughout his life. In fact, though Rodin regularly depicted fauns and faunesses with the traditional hindquarters of a goat, here they are only recognizable due to the abject abnormality of their faces, offering a sharp contrast between the eroticism and sensuality of the creatures' bodies and their expressions of hellish agony, humiliation, and trauma. Beyond the faunesses in The Gates of Hell, the figures on the doors evoke human emotions and experiences – punishment and suffering of course, but also maternal love, self-examination, and acceptance.

The Gates of Hell was only known to Rodin as a plaster cast during his lifetime, kept hidden at his studio in Meudon. The bronze sculpture of the Faunesse debout therefore emerges as an especially important and gorgeous example of the artist's intent, only posthumously accomplished.