Rodin and Carrier-Belleuse French, 1840/1824-1917/1887
Signed Carrier-Belleuse, Stamped Bronze Garanti au Titre Paris and entitled Enlevement
Conceived in 1871, the bronze cast prior to 1888 when the Pinedo Foundry acquired the rights to the cast.
Bronze with a dark brown patina with green and lighter brown highlights
Further images
The present work is the fruit of the compelling collaboration between the French master Auguste Rodin and Carrier-Belleuse before the start of the former artist’s independent career in the mid 1870’s.
The Abduction of Hippodamia is first documented in a 1871 catalogue for a sale in Brussels, which included a terracotta version of the model. At the time, Rodin was working for Carrier-Belleuse, who ran a large workshop to face the numerous commissions he received from all around Europe.
In recent years, the American scholar June Hargrove has highlighted that the Centaur's body, “which ripples with a bold musculature,” is characteristic of Rodin's male figures for the Vase of the Titans, which the artist sculpted around 1877 after a drawing by Carrier-Belleuse. Likewise, Hargrove points out how the screaming face of the Centaur is very similar to The Calls to Arms (1878) – Rodin’s submission for the Monument to the Defence of Paris.
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