Footnotes

This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté, currently being prepared by the Comité Auguste Rodin at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay.

Provenance
Musée Rodin, Paris.
(possibly) Curt Valentin Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in October 1953).
Caroline & Erwin Swann Collection, New York, by 1964.
Henry J. Goldschmidt Collection, New York (by descent from the above).
Ellen C. Goldschmidt Collection, New York (by descent from the above).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Exhibited
Portland, Portland Art Museum, Paintings & Drawings & Sculptures from the Collection of Caroline & Erwin Swann "The Pleasures of the Eye," 1964, no. 81.

Literature
L. Roger-Milés, 'Rodin,' in Figaro Illustré, vol. XVII, no. 15, March 1906 (illustrated p. 78; titled 'Jeux de faune et de nymphe').
O. Grautoff, Auguste Rodin, Bielefeld & Leipzig, 1908 (another cast illustrated p. 66; titled 'Liebesspiel').
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976 (another cast illustrated p. 53).
C. Ikegami (ed.), Exposition Rodin au Japon, exh. cat., Paris, 1979 (another cast illustrated).
A. E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, A Photographic Record of Sculpture in the Making, Oxford, 1980 (the unnumbered cast illustrated pl. 78).
C. Lampert, Rodin Sculpture & Drawings, exh. cat., London, 1986 (another cast illustrated p. 174).
M. Laurent, Rodin, Paris, 1988 (another cast illustrated p. 151).
P. Greenaway, Le Bruit des nuages. Flying out of this world, exh. cat., Paris, 1992 (another cast illustrated p. 66).
C. Ebneter et. al., Rilke & Rodin, Paris 1902-1913, Sierre, 1997 (another cast illustrated p. 175).
P. Nitti & M. Restellini, Rodin en 1900. L'exposition de l'Alma, exh. cat., Paris, 2001 (another cast illustrated pp. 291, 318-319 & plaster version illustrated p. 238).
C. Judrin, Rodin et le Japon, exh. cat., Tokyo, 2002 (another cast illustrated p. 225).
A. E. Elsen, Rodin's Art, The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, New York, 2003 (another cast illustrated p. 527).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. II, Paris, 2007, no. S.597 (another cast illustrated p. 475).
Gallimard & Musee Rodin (eds.), Rodin et la photographie, exh. cat., Paris, 2007 (the unnumbered cast illustrated p. 80).



Fascinated by the challenge of capturing movement unique to the human figure, Auguste Rodin conceived of the present sculpture between the years 1892 and 1895. Georges Grappe claims that the composition of this pair of acrobats grew from the artist's interest in "unexpected models or unusual movements" inspired by "circuses, Montmartre dancehalls, [and] fairground stalls" (quoted in A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. II, Paris, 2007, p. 476).

Here, a male nude is represented in a supine position, his legs raised as he supports a precariously balanced, cross-legged female nude. The artist was known to combine fragments of works into new compositions, and this pair of acrobats is taken from a terra-cotta sketch of a male nude, now at the Musée Rodin, and a smaller-seated female figure, both of which have appeared throughout various works by Rodin. The exaggerated and contorted forms demonstrated in Acrobate, dit aussi 'Le jongleur' prefigures Rodin's Mouvements de Danse series from 1910-1919, which pays tribute to the leaping, twisting bodies of acrobatic and balletic models.

There are currently at least 14 bronze proofs of this subject, including one cast by an undetermined foundry circa 1895, then thirteen casts by the Georges Rudier foundry between 1953 and 1960, including a n°0 proof for the artist's own collection. The present cast was executed in October 1953 for the Musée Rodin and was likely acquired by Curt Valentin gallery shortly thereafter. It has thence remained within the same private collection for nearly six decades.