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Cire perdue by Valsuani (Paris) numbered 1 by Rodo (1863-1913)
In 2001, the Geneva Museum of Art and History inaugurated a first
retrospective of the sculptor Rodo, entitled “Auguste de Niederhäusern
(1863-1913). A visionary between Geneva and Paris", who contributed to releasing this shadow artist in which a too-brief career had placed him.
Forty sculptures were presented there, from the collection of museum, accompanied by drawings and documents, but which especially marked
the release of an important catalog raisonné of his work which made it possible to have its fair aesthetic value recognized, in its time, and to retrace the constellation of artists and famous friends who marked his career, Parisian and Geneva. (Consult: “Rodo. A sculptor between Switzerland and Paris. Catalog raisonné” established by Claude Lapaire (former director of the MAH).
Edition Benteli with the support of the Institute for the Study of Art, Zurich and Lausanne,
2001. 423 p.).
Of Bernese origin, Rodo received very complete artistic training, from 1881 to1887: first at the School of Industrial Arts and Fine Arts in Geneva, then at the Académie Julian and the Beaux-Arts in Paris. His Parisian career began in 1892, when he became the main collaborator
by Auguste Rodin, until 1898 (Rodin would later support him). It binds
friendship with Antoine Bourdelle, frequents Ferdinand Hodler (it will also be said later he was the “Hodler of sculpture”). He won a gold medal
the Universal Exhibition of 1900. He rubbed shoulders in Paris with other Swiss artists, such as as Eugène Grasset, Alexandre Perrier, and he gets closer to symbolist circles and Rosicrucians. He is above all the friend of Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, of whom he sculpts the monument erected in 1911 to the glory of the poet in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris and which earned him a nomination as Knight of the Legion of Honor in France. During this Parisian career, Rodo had his workshop on rue Dutot in the 15th arrondissement. He frequents good sculptors of his generation who gravitated around the circles of Rodin and Bourdelle,
including the two sculptor brothers Gaston and Lucien Schnegg or
François Pompon again.
On his return to Switzerland, Rodo mainly sculpted the three large figures allegorical monuments of the Federal Palace in Bern (Helvetia, the Executive Power and the Legislative authority). After his death in 1913, his sculpture of the Prophet Jérémie was erected in 1931, still visible in front of Saint-Pierre Cathedral from Geneva.
In addition to the considerable influence that Auguste Rodin had in his career as a life, Rodo also met other artists in Paris who played a role
important in his artistic evolution: among them, the painter Cuno Amiet, who made a beautiful portrait of Rodo, preserved at the MAH, showing his silhouette massive and bearded like a mountain, the Giacometti brothers, Ferdinand Hodler, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux… All these sculpted portraits of Rodo’s relatives are in the collection of the Museum of Art and History. At the end of this career too short and strewn with renunciations and failures (many aborted projects), only 300 sculptures are listed in the catalog reasoned, this shows how the works of Rodo which circulate today on the Art market are rare and sought after. He is indeed one of those who refused the dominant academic forms of his time, to renew completely the sculpture of the turn of the 20th century. He is a modern outspoken shooter of his time, a strong personality who today deserves a greater recognition.
I offer for sale, by this artist, a magnificent nude study
feminine, entitled “Le Sarment” dated 1912, made in Paris (No. 264 of
catalog raisonné, reproduced p.364). The print is mentioned on the bronze “numbered 1”, stamp of the founder Claude Valsuani (CIRE/VALSUANI/PERDUE). Dimensions: high. 23, width. 29.5, prof. 13 cm.
A similar version (“numbered 2”) is kept at the MAH in Geneva,
purchased in 1925 from the artist's widow, according to which the bronze would not have beenonly two copies printed. A photo taken in an exhibition atGeneva in 1915-1917 shows the museum copy, which was alsopresented in an exhibition in Bern in 1914, and more recently at the Museum Rath in 1984 in the exhibition “Sculptures of the 20th century. From Rodin to Tinguely. Collections of the Museum of Art and History.
His stylistic expression is very inspired by Rodin. The body is
tormented, as if seized by convulsions, gnarled, like a vine branch, from which its current title. An old title (on the registration of the print kept in
MAH), is “The Branch. Poem of fire”, or “the torture of fire”, as it is
restored in a commentary by Appolinaire in 1912, who describes it as “a work nervous, disturbing and with a singular patina.” In a letter addressed to his wife, February 16, 1912, shortly before the creation of this sculpture (among his last works produced), the artist writes these few words mysterious which provides good information on the inspiration of the piece: “I will leave the care of the land. If by chance there was something melted or fallen, leave it as it is, especially for the little face that is burning...".
