H. de Roos - The critique of the toronto exhibition |
THE AUTHENTICITY OF A MOULAGE: THE HAND OF RODIN (3) The first Catalogue sommaire des Oeuvres d´Auguste Rodin – avec introduction et notices par Léonce Bénédite, conservateur du Musée Rodin, printed in 1919, lists La main de Dieu and La main du Diable tenant la Femme as Nr. 71 and 72, together with four other hand studies shown at the Hôtel Biron. If The Hand of Rodin would have been created by Rodin himself, it would have been the last work the Master had ever realized, and certainly would have been exhibited by Bénédite. Apparently, Bénédite knew better. The second edition of Grappe´s Catalogue du Musée Rodin, issued 1929, does not list the Moulage de la main de Rodin in Chapter A (Oeuvres de Rodin), but shows it merely as a small illustration in Chapter D (Esthètique) on p. 141, after the books L´Art and Les Cathédrales.
While the Philadelphia plaster was not signed nor inscribed and the Metropolitan and Washington catalogues do not mention a signature – which probably means these plasters were not signed either - the 1971 bronze cast does bear an "A. Rodin" signature, just like the MacLaren plaster.
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