GENERAL DESCRIPTION
NOTES
c. 1888
Object File Reviewed
Checked Piction
Provenance:
Wendy and Emery Reves, France, 1946-1985 (There is documentation in the object file that suggests that Reves purchased the sculpture in 1946); Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.
Credit Line:
Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 133.
Auguste Rodin's Sirens lure us today with their undulating bodies and mute songs. In linking desire with death they tell us more about the psychosexual anxieties of the fin de siècle than they do about classical mythology. The group of three women was featured in miniature in Rodin's Gates of Hell, where they appear on the left side of the left panel as it was reconfigured in the 1890s. When Rodin first conceived them in 1888, he worked to create a definitive plaster, which was used as the basis for a large number of bronze casts and studio marble versions. He then miniaturized them, and placed them in his aesthetic prison, The Gates of Hell.
The Sirens was first exhibited as Niobe before becoming The Three Sirens in 1900. In the catalogue for that year's immense Rodin exhibition, they were related to a more recent love-death concoction, the Rhine maidens of Richard Wagner's operas. The sheer beauty of the group and their comparative simplicity of meaning must have appealed to many collectors of Rodin's work. At least five marble versions survive, all created by studio assistants in Rodin's immense and utterly professional atelier. In addition to the version in the Reves Collection, other marble translation with various bases can be found at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal; the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; and the Thielska Gallery, Stockholm. All were carved from similar milky-white crystalline marble, which was superbly polished to encourage the viewer's tactile desires.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Marble
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
74812520: UMO Music and Masterpieces: French Art & Songs
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Cleveland Art Museum~Get a closer look at Rodin's The Sirens cast in bronze.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Read a biography of Auguste Rodin from the Met.
- Khan Academy~Watch a video about Rodin's Gates of Hell of which his sirens are a part. REPHRASE
- The Victoria and Albert Museum, London~Learn more about Rodin's artistic processes from the V & A.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Check out this photograph of Auguste Rodin taken by Edward J. Steichen in 1907.
- Ancient History Encyclopedia~Learn more about sirens from the Ancient History Encyclopedia.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Sirens are sometimes depicted as creatures similar to mermaids, but other sources describe them as part bird and part woman.
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1985.R.65
Category
rules_operator
AND
General Description
Fun Facts
- Sirens are sometimes depicted as creatures similar to mermaids, but other sources describe them as part bird and part woman.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Cleveland Art Museum~Get a closer look at Rodin's The Sirens cast in bronze.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Read a biography of Auguste Rodin from the Met.
- Khan Academy~Watch a video about Rodin's Gates of Hell of which his sirens are a part. REPHRASE
- The Victoria and Albert Museum, London~Learn more about Rodin's artistic processes from the V & A.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Check out this photograph of Auguste Rodin taken by Edward J. Steichen in 1907.
- Ancient History Encyclopedia~Learn more about sirens from the Ancient History Encyclopedia.
Notes
c. 1888
Object File Reviewed
Checked Piction
Provenance:
Wendy and Emery Reves, France, 1946-1985 (There is documentation in the object file that suggests that Reves purchased the sculpture in 1946); Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.
Credit Line:
Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 133.
Auguste Rodin's Sirens lure us today with their undulating bodies and mute songs. In linking desire with death they tell us more about the psychosexual anxieties of the fin de siècle than they do about classical mythology. The group of three women was featured in miniature in Rodin's Gates of Hell, where they appear on the left side of the left panel as it was reconfigured in the 1890s. When Rodin first conceived them in 1888, he worked to create a definitive plaster, which was used as the basis for a large number of bronze casts and studio marble versions. He then miniaturized them, and placed them in his aesthetic prison, The Gates of Hell.
The Sirens was first exhibited as Niobe before becoming The Three Sirens in 1900. In the catalogue for that year's immense Rodin exhibition, they were related to a more recent love-death concoction, the Rhine maidens of Richard Wagner's operas. The sheer beauty of the group and their comparative simplicity of meaning must have appealed to many collectors of Rodin's work. At least five marble versions survive, all created by studio assistants in Rodin's immense and utterly professional atelier. In addition to the version in the Reves Collection, other marble translation with various bases can be found at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal; the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; and the Thielska Gallery, Stockholm. All were carved from similar milky-white crystalline marble, which was superbly polished to encourage the viewer's tactile desires.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Marble
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
74812520: UMO Music and Masterpieces: French Art & Songs
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
Equals
1985.R.65
source file
object_notes_2_d-0305.xml.nores