Provenance

• Rodin Museum, Paris
• Dr. Kaufmann (acquired from the museum in February, 1943)
• Private collection, France (reputedly acquired between 1950 and 1960
• By inheritance

Relevant literature

• Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Rodin et le bronze, Catalogue des oeuvres conserves au musée Rodin, RMN / Musée Rodin, 2007, p. 582-583. (Rodin and the Bronze: Catalogue of the Works Held in the Rodin Museum)

Discovering Rodin's work in 1955 at an exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum, Marilyn Monroe was deeply moved by the intertwined Adam and Eve in The Hand of God; several years later, she acquired a copy of the sculpture.[1] Seduced by the erotic audacity and the liberty of Rodin's sensibility, Marilyn Monroe would no doubt have appreciated Sin, another of the master's ardent embraces.

Rodin specialist and former curator at the Rodin Museum, Antoinette Le Normand-Romain discusses Sin in her major 2007 publication, Rodin and the Bronze: "Called Victory by Otto Grautoff in 1908 and often titled Ascendancy—which has created confusion with the work of that name[2]—Sin was dated around 1888 by Georges Grappe based on a letter of Emile Verhaeren's from October 26, 1889: 'Rodin showed me a piece he'd recently made; it was one of the most alive and vibrant things I've ever seen. It's a passionate embrace and, despite that, by some kind of artistic magic, it's utterly chaste.'[3] According to Grappe, 'he could have been referring either to a work on the Ascendancy theme or one that resembles Sin. Rodin seems to have shown both works for the first time in 1888, and various columnists of the day, such as Victor Emile-Michelet, who visited Rodin's studio, mentioned these works as being on view along with a number of others that seem to have nothing to do with the Belgian poet's succinct, overly concise description.'[4]

Among the works presented at Georges Petit's gallery in 1886, the journalist Victor Emile-Michelet described, 'a couple of lovers embracing with a desperate, unquenchable passion and an ardor that gets condensed and spent in vain.'[5] In general, the works that Rodin was exhibiting at the time were larger and less blatantly erotic. This work brings together 'the masculine and the feminine elements, but this time in a fierce struggle mixed with passion. ( . . . ) The woman clings (to the man), slipping a vigorous leg around him, encircling him like ivy.'[6] Despite its small size, this is one of Rodin's most fiercely passionate works. All in all, it seems more reasonable to date it to the years 1895-97, just before it was shown in Vienna in 1898 (#120), in Brussels and the Netherlands in 1899 (#60/59), in Paris in 1900 (#2), and in Prague in 1902 (#43/135).

The female figure has been transformed into a satyress through the addition of a small tail at the base of the spine, which, on some of the plasters, is just a small protuberance, perhaps corresponding to the end of an armature. And yet this mythological detail appears on only a few of the bronzes (including one that belonged to Carrière, who also owned a large Iris) and on one marble. Planned in 1899,[7] it was not carved until much later; it is mentioned for the first time in 1911, when Gertrude Whitney acquired it.[8]

Often confused with Sin, Ascendancy—which is sometimes referred to as Sin #2—is closer to The Eternal Idol, which is composed of the same male figure on which the woman, a variant of the female nude from Sorrow #2, has "swooped down like a bird of prey." In 1889, after the Manet-Rodin exhibition, the sculptor gave a plaster of Ascendancy to Gustave Geffroy, who always kept this work, which expressed 'the permanent struggle between man and woman ( . . . ) in such a striking fashion' on his desk.[9]  A bronze, probably the only one and of rather disappointing quality, was cast by Léon Perzinka in 1889.[10] As with the plaster foundry model, now in the Rodin museum,[11] the woman's right foot is completely detached from the base, which seems to not always have beens the case. This bronze could be the one that Rodin gave to Max Linde in December 1901 after receiving an enthusiastic letter from the collector saying that he had seen a reproduction of the 'small masterpiece.'[12]

There's yet a third sculpture that is similar to Sin and also titled Ascendancy, which shows two people tightly entwined, with the woman bending backward, caught in the man's arms and the legs, like in the coils of a snake.[13] The reference to The Laocoön of antiquity combines with the influence of Symbolism to mark the work with an air of tragedy."[14]

The bronze edition of Sin is relatively well-known:

—one proof was cast by an unknown founder and was held in the private collection of Eugène Carrière[15] (1849-1906) (Sold in Paris by the Manzi-Joyant gallery, February 2-3 1920, #184).

—at least six other proofs were sand-cast by Alexis Rudier between 1929 and 1943. One of those proofs belongs to the collection of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico, and the one marked #10 is held in the Rodin Museum.