HAUTS DE FRANCE (59 - 62 - 82). Collection of 240 old and semi-modern postcards. Various towns and villages, the coast, ports, cliffs...

Auguste RODIN (1840-1917) Orpheline Alsacienne, version with tilted head inscribed A. RODIN and bears the apocryphal inscription 98 Terracotta covered with ochre slip. Height Height: 29.5 cm Total height: 37.5 cm. Slight firing crack, a few chips on the marble base. Bibliography: C. Goldscheider, Rodin Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculptée, t. 1. Paris 1888. P 58 ill Fig 35. P 59. Proof mentioned in the Musée Rodin exhibition catalog "Vers l'Age d'Airain - Rodin en Belgique" 1997. P 113. Conceived in 1870 and realized at a later date, before 1900. This work is included in the Catalogue Critique de l'œuvre sculptée d'Auguste Rodin by the Comité Rodin in collaboration with Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay Archive number 2015-4587B. The certificate of inclusion in the Catalogue, dated March 10, 2015 will be given to the purchaser. A certificate from Monsieur Philippe Maréchaux, (on the back of the photograph of the work), dated October 11, 1988 will also be given to the buyer. Origin: Probably : Former collection of French ceramist and painter Taxile Doat (1851-1939), a friend of Rodin whom he frequented at the Manufacture de Sèvres. Sale : Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 25, 1982, lot 56 Sale : Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 15, 1982, lot 67 Private collection, France (purchased at above sale) - Acquired by current owner in 1988 In a commentary on the marble work in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims, Marie Hélène Montout-Richard, chief curator, writes: "The model is certainly Rose Beuret, the artist's companion since 1864, unless it is the memory - sometimes evoked but not confirmed - of a young child seen in 1863 in a procession in Strasbourg. Exhibited in 1883 in the galleries of the L'Art magazine on Place de l'Opéra in Paris, the work was described as a "pretty marble dream". Indeed, in addition to its underlying patriotic significance, the figure's main appeal lies in the melancholy it exudes. This mingled sense of nostalgia, combined with the softness and whiteness of the marble, is reinforced by the costume's meticulous lacework. The typical Alsatian headdress, generally recognizable by its rigid knot-like shape, has been judiciously softened here. It caresses the child's head like a protective hand. L'Orpheline Alsacienne, sometimes called Petite Alsacienne or Jeune Alsacienne, was first exhibited in Brussels in 1871, shortly after Rodin's arrival in Belgium. He then spent six years of his youth criss-crossing Flanders in the company of Rose Beuret. There, he studied local art and copied the great masters. This period marked his true affirmation as an artist. Once he achieved fame, he would describe these as "the happiest days of (his) life". Among the thirty or so works presented at fifteen exhibitions, this sculpture was the most successful; the first work to be accepted by a jury (in Ghent, Salon of 1871), it was exhibited several times in different materials (marble, plaster or terracotta). Some differences are apparent in the arrangement of the head, more or less sunken in the drape of the cloak covering the shoulders, the ornaments of the the bow, and the fringed sides. This depiction of a doll-like, melancholy little girl is all the more appealing as its title places it in the imagery recently created by France's loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Presented with an Alsatian headdress, it pays homage to these lost provinces. Critics rave: "a delightful little Alsatian" (Gazette de Bruxelles), "made from nothing, like a pencil sketch, and which many poor devils envy to Charles Buls who acquired it" (La chronique), "exquisitely naive and graceful with its large silk bow placed on the forehead like a butterfly spreading its wings" (L'Écho). In a word, "it's naiveté with grace. The ravishing head of a little girl" (Sulzberger). Exhibited in February 1883, in the salons of "L'Art", Place de l'Opéra, on the occasion of the tombola for the flood victims of Alsace-Lorraine, L'Orpheline Alsacienne was noticed and described as "a pretty marble dream" (Jacques de Biez). Note the difference between the plaster casts and terracottas with the head upright, and the marbles where the head has been tilted over the shoulder, enhancing the figure's sorrowful appearance. The reference marble is in the Musée Rodin (H. 38.5 cm).