RODIN OR NOT?

 Drawing A

This drawing was sold on the internet recently for $2,100.00. A price of just over two thousand dollars would be ridiculous for a Rodin drawing of a Cambodian dancer,if one ever came to market.  If it is a Rodin the new owner got a bargain. If not they may have acquired a curiosity-one of the many,many forgeries of  Rodin in circulation.Here are some questions which the buyer could have asked before purchase.

Why is this drawing not in the Musée Rodin? You may say that not all drawings by Rodin are in the Musée Rodin.This is quite true, but most of them are and that is the way Rodin wanted it. Did Rodin not give drawings to friends and patrons you may object? Quite true, he did, and they often have inscriptions commemorating the event. He did not give drawings away to every Tom, Dick and Harriet. If Rodin gave you a drawing, be sure he thought about it and weighed the recipient's status accordingly.Adding an inscription to a forged item would be a risky business because Rodin's life is very well documented and his friends and patrons are well known. This would require thorough background knowledge of the Rodin circle so a forger would not wish for added complications such as this. Is there an inscription-other than a signature on this drawing? Not that I can tell.

 We would expect it to be in Paris because Rodin viewed his drawings as a resource to be tended lovingly. His experience with the Cambodian dancers was such that it is almost impossible to think that he would let a drawing from this group escape. It would have been too great a sacrifice.
But here again there can be exceptions.There are at least four cambodians not in the Musee Rodin-but all seem to have good pedigrees.

Why, if it is by Rodin, is this drawing exceptional in format among the Cambodian dancers? It is much larger than the dancers illustrated in the survey of drawings  mentioned at the end of this post  and it is considerably larger than the great majority of Rodin's drawings in general.This would give me cause for concern.The size is given as 17X 23 inches. Varnedoe mentions drawings by Durig in Rodin's manner on paper of approximately this size.Some are of Cambodian dancers.

As to the quality of the work itself I would say that it is poor. Rodin often makes the arms of his dancers long and snake like-to convey the expressive quality of their movement.But here they are somewhat wooden and lumpish. The neck is too long.There is no impression that there is a lower body under the skirt. The lower legs appear like those of china dolls where the torso is just cloth and stuffing. In general the drawing is too timid and careful thus failing to mimic Rodin's creative fervour.In one way this drawing is too careful. Rodin's drawings are spontaneous and quick. They are often messy and clumsy-but in an extremely spontaneous way. This one is messy,clumsy and deliberate.Rodin made drawings for his own ends. This one is different.

Is the drawing accepted as genuine by the  Musée Rodin?  

It is normal for  auction houses to advise that a work by, Klee, Nolde or Rodin for example is accepted as genuine by major experts on the artists in question. This happened on April 11 this year when Christies sold an important group of Rodin drawings in  Paris. Here it was advised that the drawings were  accepted as genuine by the Musée Rodin's experts.It could also be shown that the works can be traced through collections back to Rodin's day. As a result the drawings made good prices-way above estimates.

Here is another work,of similar size and quality- possibly by the same hand as drawing A. Perhaps also,intrinsically of better quality.

Drawing B

You can see many illustrations of works by imitators of Rodin's drawings at the Fogg website here.

If you want to read more about forgeries of Rodin drawings then please consult the essay by Kirk Varnedoe in Albert Elsen & J Kirk T Varnedoe: The Drawings of Rodin, London,1972. But bear in mind that this should be read in conjunction with Varnedoe's text in  the exhibition catalogue Rodin Rediscovered of 1981 where Varnedoe  revises some opinions. 

For a good selection of Rodin drawings-from the Musée Rodin, then consult; August Rodin: Drawings and Watercolours; by Antoinette Lenormand-Romain and Christina Bulley-Uribe, London 2006.You may also be interested in my  posts on forgery of Gauguin and Samuel Palmer.

UPDATE JULY 2013. Regarding expertise and authentication. This can lead to very complex situations-see for rxample this article about Andy Warhol authentication here.

HIS MASTERPIECE-ZOLA AND CEZANNE IN PARIS

I have been rereading the old translation of Zola's 1886 novel L'Oeuvre. In English it is known as The Masterpiece or His Masterpiece. It is not a good book-by Zola's own standards - it follows Germinal and does not live up to that spectacular drama. It gives a picture of the Paris art world which is tolerable but hardly subtle. This is the work which is thought to have hastened or completed the estrangement between Zola and his childhood friend  Cézanne. There is no clear cut evidence that this is the case. But Cézanne himself and his Aixois friends from childhood would have had no difficulty in recognising the account of their adolescence. Zola had been  happy to use Cézanne père as material   so why not his oldest and supposedly dearest friend?   This is the sort of cannibalism  into which authors are prone to fall when they are short of material. Cézanne had also painted at Bennecourt which features in the early part of the book, in the company of Zola and Valabrègue.To be fair to Zola he does try to blur the issue-a little. One of Claude's paintings appears to derive from Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe . Manet had just died and he at least was in no position to complain.

At one point  Zola describes Claude as painting a major project from a viewpoint on the right bank of the Seine under the  Pont des Sts Pères (nowadays the Pont du Carrousel) . This is the work which brings him to disaster. It  must be said that the imagined painting does not sound like any known work by Cézanne. It is a slightly symbolist view-towards the  Pont des Arts and the Cité. It will include-and this gives rise to serious difficulties- a nude female in a boat. She is apparently symbolic of something though this is not made clear. The writer Sandoz (Zola) finds this odd, to say the least.So we must imagine this scene containing a skiff with a naked woman at the prow. Claude cannot leave the figure alone and his creative torment leads eventually to his destruction.

Cézanne/Lantier is described as  working from the quayside oblivious of the traffic on the bridge above, in what seems to be an isolated location . In the foreground of the imaginary scene is the Port St Nicholas where sacks of plaster are being unloaded by the crane known as La Sophia.The Port St Nicholas was just adjacent to the Louvre (and sometimes known as the Port du Louvre) and Zola describes a crane and the bags of plaster being unloaded.The postcard below is entitled Port des Saints Pères but is evidently the same area,just upstream of the bridge..

This is a  photograph courtesy of CPA-Bastille91.com which dates from circa 1900 and shows the busy quayside. Perhaps this image best illustrates something of Zola's imaginary composition. You can  see the Pont des Arts-the first bridge quite clearly.On the right of the image the dome of the Institut de France is prominent. In the distance you can see the flèche of the Sainte-Chapelle and then the towers of Notre Dame.

 

This is the pont des Saints Pères in a drawing from the early 1880s by Ottin.Below it the Port St Nicholas/Port du Louvre.The view is looking upstream. You can see a steam crane unloading sand.Quayside scenes are quite common in the work of avant-garde painters of the time. Monet and Guillaumin come immediately to mind. Cranes-les grues-also appear in images by Signac and Dubois-Pillet.

THE WRECK OF THE TADORNE

Northumberland can be proud of its lifeboats and their crews.The county was early to be involved in the idea of a lifeboat service. So it gave me great pleasure to read the recently published booklet about the rescue of the crew of the the Tadorne at Howick in 1913. It covers the story of the wreck and the subsequent rescue of most of the sailors  by the crew of the Boulmer lifeboat.Unfortunately five of the ship's crew did not survive.There is also an account of recent commemorations associated with the centenary of the shipwreck. It is another witness to the bravery and dedication of the folk who crew the lifeboats. In this booklet we can see photos of many  members of the lifeboat crew. In those days and for a long time after the names of the Stephenson and Stanton families were closely associated with the Boulmer lifeboat. The booklet reproduces a painting by Arthur Marsh which reminds us that the women of fishing villages also played their part in rescues-here they are shown pulling the lifeboat into the waves.

The steam trawler Tadorne (Shellduck) had been on her way to Iceland for the fishing.She had a crew of 30, presumably to  allow for shift work.She went aground on the night of 29 March 1913 and her boiler is still visible on the coast near the site of the old boathouse at Howick Haven.The sailors who died are all buried at Howick, just as you enter the churchyard.

Part of the Tadorne's Boiler

 Perhaps Ms Meakin could have given more background about Howick itself. In the parish registers there is plenty of information available about the anonymous corpses of sailors found "cast ashore" at Howick in the early nineteenth century.Their clothes are described or there may be a note to say that the corpse probably came from a particular shipwreck.This would have been helpful if there were subsequent enquiries about the victims. In those days the sailors were often buried within 24 hours of discovery. In the parish records you will also find the name of the Catholic priest who conducted the funeral service.The register states, "Buried by  Alfred Verity Young, Roman Catholic Priest, Alnwick."The burials are listed under numbers  466 to 470.

 One press account has Earl Grey sending his driver to Boulmer with news of the wreck.This is not discussed in the publication-either to refute or confirm the story. The Craster coastguard  had certainly spotted the wreck. Did they not have any method of contacting/signalling to Boulmer?

Ms Meakin states that the Craster coastguard tried to get a line to the boat to use breeches buoy to rescue the survivors. The Evening Mail of 31/03/13 says that says that four attempts were made to get a line over the boat were made. Three failed but one did succeed.The paper states that the men were: "apparently so be-numbed as to be unable to make the line fast". The Mail also states that there was a gale blowing from the south-east and a heavy swell. 

For further background I would add that the Berwick lifeboat was also out that weekend in thick fog and rescued the whole 11  crew of the Swedish barque Jacob Rouers carrying timber to Grangemouth. Newspaper accounts paint the picture of a Northumberland coastline strewn with debris such as pit props from Scandinavia .We should remember that in those days the amount of shipping lost through running aground was considerable.

All that remains of the ship is half of its boiler which is very visible from Howick Haven and other parts of the coastline. If you want to visit it you must go at the lowest possible tide.Either the half boiler has moved in the past few decades or there was another half nearer the shore. Part of the boiler appears in  an illustration on page 68 of Ian Smith's Northumbrian Coastline (1988) and it is definitely horizontal and further inshore than the present fragment.But in 1993 Alec Thompson-whose family cared for the sailors' graves was photographed with a part of the boiler which is upright.As the remaining fragment is now. I tend to think that there were two halves of the boiler and that the part inshore was removed. But I could easily be wrong.

 Themes new to me are the involvement of Countess Grey's French maid who acted as interpreter at the inquest (on the Monday following the wreck-they did things differently in those days). And I would  have appreciated more information about the letter Countess Grey is described as writing to the Archenoux family after the remarkable recovery of Pierre Archenoux's sea chest.

This is a pleasantly presented publication  in the A5 format. But one page does seem to be superfluous.It is a wholly impressionistic  and general sketch of the mood associated with a shipwreck-not this shipwreck or rescue. It is Mademoiselle not Madamoiselle and there is some inconsistency in spelling the name Stephenson. Just the sort of typos you find after going to press.

You can buy the booklet at various tourist information centres in the locality. Its price is £3.00.

THE WRECK OF THE TADORNE-Avril Meakin, published Howick Heritage Group, 2013

(Updated November 7, 2014.)
(Updated October 30, 2015 with reference to the Evening Mail newspaper account.)

And see also my post of the cutting with ref to Alec Thompson of the Howick Seahouses family which first sheltered the seamen and then tended the grave of the dead sailors for years afterwards.  Also my painting of the site is here

DIARY OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 1

I was out painting near Alnwick on Friday.Two pochades were the result. And I found a view which may make another painting someday.

The sky on Friday was not very interesting-hardly anything in the way of clouds to be seen. I decided to paint a sketch which had little or no sky and would be almost all green.It gave me the chance-or challenge to make a painting out of nothing as you might say.In this sketch  there was no drawing and not much of a design.I always find this difficult and tend to want  more dramatic compositions.In this sketch I started with the pink of the track but used no construction lines. It was more a question of building up as opposed to filling in.

I thought it was really amusing that here I was, an artist of 2013 trying to put into practice something of the advice that Pissarro gave to Louis Le Bail in the early 1890s.

Do not define the outlines too closely; it is the brushwork of the right value and colour which produces the drawing. Paint the essential character of things; try to convey it by any means whatever, without concern for technique. When painting, make a choice of subject, see what is lying at the right and left, then work on everything simultaneously. Don't work bit by bit, but paint everything at once by placing tones everywhere, with brushstrokes of the right colour and value, while noticing what is alongside. Use small strokes and try to put down your perceptions immediately. The eye should not be fixed on one point, but should take in everything, whilst noting the reflections the colors produce on their surroundings. 

 I found it  liberating to work in this way on a pochade and the art historian in me began looking back to Pissarro's involvement with Neo-Impressionism and to the  work of Signac,the Fauves and so on.One thinks also of Cézanne who surely benefitted considerably from his friendship with the "humble and colossall Pissarro".

The palette for this painting I used particularly the following colours:
viridian hue, chrome oxide green, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, permanent rose,  winsor lemon,yellow ochre,burnt sienna,flake white hue.


When I had finished work in the lane I set off to find another motif. When I last saw this view near Alnwick there was no sign of leaves on the trees.