National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Figure of a Woman "The Sphinx"
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

on right side of self-base, near the fingers of the figure: A. Rodin

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Purchased 1910 from the artist by Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer, Mount Kisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.;[1] gift 1967 to NGA.

[1] Probably in the spring of 1909, Eugene Meyer saw one of two versions of The Sphinx that Rodin was then working on, and asked Rodin to complete it for him. By the end of the year, Meyer heard from his fiancé, Agnes Ernst, that Rodin preferred the other version, and Meyer wrote to the artist asking him to send the "one which you consider the better" (letter from Eugene Meyer to Rodin, 31 December 1909). He repeated this request when he sent payment for the sculpture early the next year (letter from Eugene Meyer to Rodin, 23 February 1910). Finally, in March 1910, Agnes and Eugene Meyer, who were married in February 1910, wrote from their honeymoon trip to tell Rodin how happy they were "to have the Sphinx waiting for us on our return to New York" (letter from Eugene and Agnes Meyer to Rodin, 8 March 1910; all three letters in Musée Rodin Archives, Paris).

Exhibition History

1911
Exhibition of Works by Members of the "Société des Peintres et Sculpteurs", Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Institute of Chicago; City Art Museum, St. Louis, 1911-1912, no. 125, repro.
2009
The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue (shown only in Washington).

Bibliography

1927
Grappe, Georges. Catalogue du Musée Rodin. Paris, 1927: 58.
1944
Grappe, Georges. Catalogue du Musée Rodin. 5th ed. Paris, 1944: 56.
1959
Alley, Ronald. Tate Gallery Catalogues. The Foreign Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. London, 1959: 223-224.
1975
Hawkins, Jennifer. Rodin Sculptures. London, 1975: 22, figs. 14 and 15.
1987
Barbier, Nicolle. Marbres de Rodin: collection du musée. Paris, 1987: 102-103.
1988
Beausire, Alain. Quand Rodin Exposait. Paris, 1988: 104, 117, 123, 135, 194, 253, 327, 367.
1989
Vilain, Jacques. Claude Monet-Auguste Rodin: Centennaire de l'exposition de 1889. Exh. cat. Musée Rodin, Paris, 1989: 200-201.
1992
Barbier, Nicolle. Rodin sculpteur: Oeuvres méconnues. Exh. cat. Musée Rodin, Paris, 1992: 119-126.
1994
Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 201, repro.
2000
Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 338-342, color repro.

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