There is perhaps no greater thrill for an auctioneer than discovering a long-lost work. Such was the case for auction house owner Aymeric Rouillac, who visited a collector’s home and noticed a sculpture by Auguste Rodin that had been unseen for more than a century casually perched on the family’s piano. “They said, ‘It’s a fake, it’s a copy,’ ” Rouillac told CNN. This past week the work, titled Le Désespoir (The Despair in English), sold for $1.2 million, ArtNet reports.
The small figure, which stands 11.2 inches tall, was designed for The Gates of Hell, a set of doors and surrounding frame that Rodin worked on from 1880 until his death, in 1917. Another of the nearly 200 figures created for the piece was The Thinker, now arguably one of the world’s most famous sculptures. Despair was rendered in a number of materials, including marble, limestone and cast plaster and bronze.
This iteration, in marble, was originally purchased by a financier, before selling at auction, in 1906, for 4,100 francs. At Rouillac’s sale, it was won by a young banker from the United States. As the auctioneer commented in the press materials, “Despair inspires bankers.”
