Camille Claudel’s L’Âge Mûr: A Remarkable Rediscovery

La Gazette Drouot
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A major work by Camille Claudel, L’Âge mûr et la Jeunesse (The Age of Maturity and Youth), had a long and checkered history. The recently rediscovered, No. 1 in Blot’s cast edition sheds light on the various stages.

Camille Claudel (1864-1943), L'Âge mûr aka L'Âge mûr et la Jeunesse, 1898, bronze with richly shaded brown patina, sand cast by Eugène Blot in 1907, the number “1” at the feet of the imploring woman, 61.5 x 85 x 37.5 cm/24 x 35.5 x 14.6 in.
Estimate: €1.5/2 M
Camille Claudel (1864-1943), L’Âge mûr aka L’Âge mûr et la Jeunesse, 1898, bronze with richly shaded brown patina, sand cast by Eugène Blot in 1907, the number “1” at the feet of the imploring woman, 61.5 x 85 x 37.5 cm/24 x 35.5 x 14.6 in.
Estimate: €1.5/2 M

Critics of the time unanimously acclaimed Camille Claudel‘s L’Âge mûr as her masterpiece. In 1907, the art critic Charles Morice wrote in the Mercure de France: “Camille Claudel’s talent is one of both the glories and scandals of our country. That this woman is one of the great artistic personalities of our time, no one, I repeat, no qualified person disputes…We know all this, and yet we do nothing to facilitate her work, and, among so many, so strangely allocated commissions, not one is reserved for the admirable creator of L’Âge mûr et la Jeunesse.” The paradox of an artist celebrated by critics, officially recognized but receiving little financial support, explains why this group is so rare. Various institutions possess plaster casts and a few bronze editions, through donations or late acquisitions, but not all copies in private hands have been located, and this reappearance is a red-letter day for the market. The work remained in the family of the first buyer through a direct inheritance. It had lain dormant under a sheet in a Parisian apartment that had been closed for some 15 years, and which housed a whole collection of sculptures, including animal subjects by Antoine-Louis Barye and a Penelope by Bourde le. The auctioneer was immediately struck by the signature of the founder and art dealer Eugène Blot on the sculpture. Matthieu Semont had a particularly vivid memory of L’Implorante from his formative years in a Saint-Germain-en-Laye law firm… and the pieces of the puzzle came together. The figure of this young woman trying to hold on to an older man who is already abandoning her has of course been interpreted as autobiographical: the supplicant can be seen as an alter ego of the sculptor, who realized as she approached her thirties that Rodin would never leave Rose Beuret for her. The dates are confusing. Claudel sketched the first drawings for her group in the early 1890s in a letter to Léon Gauchez. She was gradually becoming estranged from Rodin at that time, and she finally broke with him and his studio in 1892. Le Chemin de la vie ou La Destinée (The Path of Life or Destiny), one of the first titles envisaged for L’Âge mûr, was also a declaration of independence and an assertion of her style. This can be felt as well through its allegorical aspect, with the three ages of life and the shadow of death, the older figure that carries the man into maturity.

The Stages of the Sculpture

Camille’s correspondence with her brother describes the various stages in the creation of this work: in 1893, Paul learned that she was thinking of including a leaning tree, to accentuate the diagonal and the interpretation of destiny. At that time, all the characters were still joined: Youth sought to hold in her arms Mature Age, which gradually replaced the tree with his own arms, evoking the forks in road of life. The process took a long time, made even longer by the artist’s financial difficulties. In 1894, she presented at the Salon a plaster cast of the female figure on the right, entitled Le Dieu envolé (The Vanished God), now lost. The pose varies slightly, as the movement of the arms is not fixed, but the kneeling, supplicating position is recognizable. She worked on a second version of this figure in patinated plaster (Musée Camille Claudel), where the arms are outstretched in supplication and the wild hair recalls her Clotho: this is the study for L’Implorante (Imploring Woman). In 1895, she produced the first plaster model of the entire group. Rodin, seeking to help her, recommended her to the Secretary of State for Fine Arts. The reports from Armand Silvestre, who discovered the sculpture, were decidedly positive, and the official commission for a plaster version of the work was signed for 2,500 francs. It took another three years for the sculptor to complete her work. Government reports describe the creation as it progressed: the widening space between the young woman and the man, their hands separating, and the appearance of streaming draperies, evoking the movement in another of her sculptures, La Valse. In 1898, the State approved the work, and Armand Silvestre gave Claudel hope that it would be executed in bronze: “As it stands, the group is admirable and of modern workmanship. It deserves to be executed in bronze, as the artist has requested, and I firmly approve her wish.” But alas, these promises were endlessly deferred. Claudel had to ask her father to intervene for the payment, which did not arrive until 1899, and although an order was drawn up the same year, the price and date were left blank. Later, instructions for postponement, then cancellation circulated within the Ministry.

L’Âge Mûr: “A Living Drama”

The work was also presented to the public in 1899 at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, where L’Âge mûr was noted for its originality. The critic Charles Fremine praised “the living drama, truly suffered despite its fantasy aspect”, and “the moving execution faithfully expressing the feeling that inspired it.” The cancellation of the commission intensified the artist’s paranoia. She saw it as Rodin’s doing, as she wrote to Léon Gauchez, suspecting that “the Weasel” had also made sure the work would not be selected for the 1900 Universal Exhibition. This was not the first time that the State had withdrawn its patronage, as witness the many tribulations of Claudel’s Sakuntala, and it was once again the support of private individuals and Eugène Blot that enabled her to transmute all of her expressive power into bronze. It was Louis Tissier, Captain of the Engineers, who first commissioned her to produce the bronze version of L’Implorante, which proved a great success. He then financed the first bronze transcription of the entire group in 1902, under Claudel’s close supervision, with the firm Thiébaut Frères, Fumière et Gavignot. It was this work that the Musée d’Orsay acquired from Captain Tissier’s descendants in 1982, after decades of oblivion.

Blot Enters the Scene

Eugène Blot met Camille Claudel in 1904, shortly after Tissier’s bronze was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français. Heir to the Blot et Drouard foundry, and also an art collector and dealer, he actively championed a new generation of artists. He supported the sculptor in her dealings with the authorities, trying to get them to honor their commitments, or at least to resume the project for a transcription of the group, this time in marble. Though the French government said it had no record of the promises it had made to Claudel, Blot was not discouraged and set about editing works by the artist himself. This was the case in 1905 for several sculptures, including L’Abandon (Abandonment), as well as L’Implorante, which he presented in a highly acclaimed solo exhibition. The ambitious dealer planned to produce up to 50 copies, but in the end was unable to break even. When, in 1907, he undertook to edit the entire group in a reduced version, he limited the edition to six, and the artist’s great-niece, Reine-Marie Paris, thinks that only five were actually produced. With his sand casting, he achieved a very precise execution that restored the tension of the bodies. The engraving reflects the modeling extremely accurately and, even from below, the ingenious joining of the group suggests the drama. The patina makes the contrast between the figures even more vibrant: browner for Old Age, and more golden, with hints of red, for Youth. Approved by the sculptor, this casting is as faithful as possible to her intentions. Carvillani’s large-scale cast, now in the Rodin Museum, was commissioned by Philippe Berthelot, a member of the family committee, after Claudel’s internment in 1913, but was not intended by her. Eugène Blot stated in 1936 that he had sold four of his reductions. The Leblanc-Barbedienne company, which took over the rights to the foundryman’s models, did not risk re-editing Claudel’s work as it was reluctant to continue Blot’s work without a written contract between him and the artist, now in an asylum. After her death, no further editions were made, and some copies disappeared. No. 4 is now in the Musée Claudel, and the recently resurfaced No. 1 goes on sale today.

Worth Knowing
Sunday February 16, 2025
Orléans. Philocale auction house
Cabinet Lacroix-Jeannest
The bronze will be exhibited in Paris at 20, rue Drouot on Wednesday February 12
From 11 am to 6 pm
Then in Orléans, Friday February 14

CAMILLE CLAUDEL n°1

Sunday 16 February 2025 – 16:00 (CET) – Live

4 place Sainte Croix – 45000 Orléans

Philocale

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