Premiere in Romania – a version of the sculpture “Kiss”, created by one of the most famous representatives of universal sculpture, Auguste Rodin, will be auctioned at the Spring Auction 2023, which also celebrates the 500th anniversary of the auction held by Artmark’s A10 Auction House. Considered a masterpiece of modern art, The Kiss has a starting price of €80,000 and comes from the historic collection of a prominent Romanian officer in the Royal Army.

One of the most famous sculptures in the world was inspired by the love story between Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, two characters in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, who were caught kissing, killed and condemned to spend eternity in hell by Francesca’s husband.

The work “Kiss” Rodin created in 1889 in marble for the World Exhibition in Paris on the order of the Ministry of Culture of France, previously, starting in 1882, testing different options and positions of the subject (at first as a relief). monumental sculpture “Gates of Hell”). Rodin would later calibrate the sculpture that became famous in several height variations and cast them in bronze with the help of Emile LeBlanc Barbedien in several copies, one of which is presented in the spring 2023 anniversary auction. Most of these copies are kept in important art museums around the world, and some of those that exist in private collections have been auctioned for hundreds of thousands or even millions of euros in recent years. For example, recently, in 2018, one of the most important auction houses in Great Britain managed to sell a reduced bronze example for no less than 14 million euros (thereby increasing the value of all other examples existing in private collections). The lot, located in Bucharest and up for auction, is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued recently, in 2022, by the Auguste Rodin Committee, which precisely identifies the specimen and indicates that the discovery will soon be included in the new edition of Auguste Rodin’s Rezoned Catalog (Catalogue Critique de l’ oeuvre Sculpté d’Auguste Rodin).

It is important to mention several private Romanian collections in which important masterpieces of European culture appeared, and from time to time, despite the half-life given to them by the confiscations of the communist period, continue to appear, proving the same resilience that only books profess, characters and ideas. An ingenious vision that indicates great culture and sophistication – at the moment of acquisition of the work, followed by the extraordinary endurance of the collection, first in wartime, then during the friction of the communist state, and finally at the turning point of the opportunity to sell the work in the square, in short describe three important moments of the entire century spent in the collection of the family of the officer Nicolae Ionescu, who owned the Rodin sculpture in Bucharest. Colonel Nicolae Ionescu, an officer in the royal army, belonged to a wealthy family from Prague that owned vineyards and oil wells in the Prahova (Urlati) valley, related to the Makovei families (owners of vineyards in Odobest) and Kostiantyn Vishoianu (a former foreigner). Minister of Romania during World War II), and probably purchased the Rodin sculpture in the period 1906-1910. It should be noted that in Romania, Rodin’s bronzes, cast by him during his lifetime, rarely appeared in collections, but always in the collections of Romanian figures at the turn of the century, such as Queen Elizabeth or the politician Ioan Calinderu (purchased by him for the Calinderu Museum, with the support of the Eustaciadis legacy, today in the collection of the National Art Museum).

As a consequence of the history of this exceptional exhibition, it can be, for example, related to Rodin from the collection of Queen Elizabeth, the work presented at the auction on March 29, which comes from the collection of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Queen Mary and the future Queen of Greece: the watercolor “Vedută Dobrogeană “, made by the artist Cecilia Cucescu-Stork with the figure of a princess on the reverse, who participated in the exhibition “Artistic Youth” in 1916 (starting price 900 euros). As for the Parisian example of our art school, for example, a rare painting autographed by Alexander Chukurenko, painted by him around 1930, in his first creative youth, when he studied in Paris with the great modernist Andre Lhote, a representative original of Cubism (starting price 12,000 euros) .

“Kiss” is not the only famous sculpture presented at the auction on March 29. Next to a work signed by French master Auguste Rodin, the spring auction will feature a bronze sculpture, The Archer Resting, by Ion Jalea, with a starting price of €5,000. The original stone version of the Archer model, sculpted in 1926, is located in front of the Ion Jalea Museum in Constanta, while another version of the work was to be purchased by the Romanian state and used as a banner for the main exhibition of international events promoting Romanian art, which took place in the 30s and 40s in Paris, Barcelona, ​​Oslo, Zurich or Amsterdam.

“Spring auction. Anniversary Auction No. 500 (Part I)” will be held on Wednesday, March 29 at 7:00 p.m. at the InterContinental Athénée Palace, Regina Maria Hall, bringing together 151 works of art signed by the great master of Romanian art, Nicolae Grigorescu. , Nicolae Tonica, Camil Ressu, Gheorghe Petrascu, Nicolae Darascu, Samuel Mutzner, Constantin Pilutze, Josip Iser or Horia Bernea. The exhibition of masterpieces is open to the general public at Palatul Cesianu-Racoviță, on CA Rosetti street, from Monday to Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Article supported by A10 by Artmark