Rodin and Holland. ParisReview by: Alison McQueenThe Burlington Magazine, Vol. 138, No. 1118 (May, 1996), pp. 349-350Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/886931 .

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS

54. Ciborium of Master Alpais. Limoges, c. 1200. Copper, champlev6 enamel, glass cabochons and enamelled beads, 30.1 by 16.8 cm. (Louvre, Paris).

54.

But Limoges enamels could be found in every corner of Europe: gemellions have been ploughed up in Poland, and croziers discovered in tombs in Spain and Italy.

The catalogue is a beautiful example of museum co-operation, written largely by Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye of the Louvre and Barbara Boehm of the Metropolitan, but based on the tremendous work on the enamels of Limoges by Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, which began in 1948 and still continues. It is handsomely produced in both French and English editions.*

The beginnings of enamelling in south- western France are to be found in works made for Abbot B&gon III of Conques on the eve of the twelfth century. A portable altar and other pieces in the cloisonn6 tech- nique are extremely beautiful and depend in part on Byzantine traditions. The four great plaques from the Morgan Collection in the Metropolitan, showing the evangelist symbols in brilliant cloisonn6, have recently been added to this small group, which intro- duces the exhibition. But it was the move from cloisonn6 on gold to champlev6 enamel on copper which transformed the enamel industry and made it possible to produce tough and beautiful objects out of uncorro- sive and non-precious materials.

The changes in techniques moved slowly from the cloisonn6 roundels of birds and beasts to the champleve of the chasse of Champagnet (c. 1150; Fig.52). Then fol- lowed the engraving of the copper back- ground (vermicul6) in about 1160-80, to emphasise the enamel figures, at which point in its history the technique was re- versed and engraved copper saints were seen against enamel. All of this is carefully outlined in the catalogue by the conser- vators on both sides of the Atlantic, who examined and cleaned the objects.

55. Head of St Ferreolus. Limoges, 1346. Copper, champlev6 enamel and semi-precious stones, 60 by 32 cm. (Parish church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist, Nexon; exh. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). 55.

That very cleanliness has made many of the objects stunning. The five great relief figures from the main altar of the Abbey of Grandmont make an amazing ensemble, and have never been shown together before this exhibition. They are major works of early gothic sculpture (c. 1231), on average 11 1 inches high, in gilt copper relief against dark blue enamelled plaques of swirling vines. Other objects, such as the great tablernacle of Cherves, have taken on a new life with the gilding cleaned, and the wood- en coffret of St Louis is superb with its brass tacks looking like gold.

But the quality that impresses one the most, and has perhaps been obscured by the general view of the proto-industrial pro- duction of Limoges enamel, is the lyrical beauty of so many of the designs. A scene such as the martyrdom of St Valerie is por- trayed not as a tragic event but as a ballet, in which the figures dance across the casket. The story is also amusing, and the artists must have seen it as such, as Valerie, after her decapitation, carries her head to St Martial, bishop of Limoges. Similarly the Massacre of the Innocents and the Murder of Thomas Becket (Fig.53) are shown as elegant theatre, in which the winding cloth of Becket is treated as a flowing, wind-wafted line of gold.

Also a new view emerges concerning the supposed anonymity of these objects. The Alpais ciborium (Fig.54) is famous for its signature by the artist, but the bust reliquary of St Ferreolus (Fig.55) is also signed, by Aymeric Chre'tien, who calls himself 'gold- smith of the Chateau of Limoges'. Many of the secular pieces are tied to the names of kings, knights and bishops and are thus easily dateable. Now a more solid frame- work is possible for the history of the subject than what was known to Rupin in the nine-

teenth century, the great era of collecting Limoges enamels.

The only defect in the Metropolitan's installation is that the very important tombs of St Louis's children, Blanche of Cham- pagne and others are placed in the central court of the Lehman wing, where they are underlit, and hence not noticed by the aver- age visitor.

RICHARD H. RANDALL

*L'YEuvre de Limoges. By Barbara Drake Boehm, Eliza- beth Taburet-Delahaye, et al. 480 pp. incl. 206 col. pls. + 252 b. & w. ills. (Editions du Reunion des Mus6es Nationaux, Paris, 1995), FF39. ISBN 2-7118-3305-4. English edition: Enamels of Limoges (Distributed by Harry N. Abrams, New York). ISBN 0-8109-6500-3.

Paris Rodin and Holland

Three interconnected threads wove together the exhibition Rodin and Holland at the Mus6e Rodin, Paris (closed 31st March).' First, the show reconstructed the contents of Rodin's exhibition in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and The Hague in 1899. Despite the imprecise identifications of works in the original catalogue, the cura- tors Claudie Judrin and Antoinette Le Normand-Romain showed an impressive twenty drawings and forty-one plaster casts (Fig.56), which they identified through con- temporary newspaper reports and photo- graphs.2 The plaster casts proved the most difficult to identify since Rodin typically destroyed or reworked casts that were in poor condition and did not himself differen- tiate between versions of the same work. Secondly, a display of works drawn from

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS

56. Camille Claudel, mask, by Auguste Rodin. Plaster, 22.5 by 17 by 16 cm. (Muste Rodin, Paris).

57. Copy of Rembrandt's etching, Self-portrait leaning, by Auguste Rodin. c.1916. Pen and purple ink, 17.6 by 11.6 cm. (Muske Rodin, Paris). 56. I 57.

Rodin's personal collection demonstrates his affinity for Dutch seventeenth- and nine- teenth-century art. As early as 1870 Rodin copied Pieter de Hooch's Courtyard ofa Dutch house (Louvre) in a highly finished squared- up drawing. Between 1894 and 1905 Rodin purchased three works by Vincent van Gogh (Pern Tanguy, The harvesters, and View of the viaduct at Arles) and he acquired many works by his friend the Dutch painter and etcher Philippe Zilcken, including a copy of Vermeer's Street in Delft. Zilcken's admira- tion and promotion of Rodin's work in Holland led to the contents of the third sec- tion of the exhibition: a series of Rodin's prints and drawings acquired by Dutch col- lectors.

The most striking aspect of Rodin's affin- ity for Holland was his profound admiration for Rembrandt, whom he described as a 'prophet' of God in one of his notebooks. His interest began as early as the 1870s when he acquired an anonymous copy of the Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh in the Antwerp Museum and was not confined to his student years, for he acquired a painted copy of the Bathsheba (Louvre) by 1886 and produced drawn copies of Rembrandt's prints as late as c. 1911. Thus Rodin's belief that he could learn or benefit from Rembrandt's techniques continued and - based on the concentration of copies c. 1911 - appears to have increased after he himself received public acclaim, while photographs show the prominent position the Bathsheba copy occupied in his studio from 1886 through to 1917.

This exhibition also re-addressed Rodin's r61e as a print maker, a little-discussed as- pect of his career and one which deserves greater attention. Rodin's friendship and professional contact with Legros, Bracque- mond and Waltner aligned him with many of the central figures of the etching revival in

France. The curators suggest that Rodin's own prints, such as the various states of the drypoint Victor Hugo seen from the front, were executed principally to reproduce his own sculpted oeuvre.

These works are, however, more than reproductions and they dem- onstrate Rodin's facility with the print medium and undoubtedly contributed to his reverence for Rembrandt, then a cult figure for French print-makers.

Rodin's emulation of Rembrandt ap- pears again in his inscription on the back of The good planet, a drawing of a female nude: 'Sleep from Michelangelo - Landscape from Rembrandt'. Rodin may have been com- paring movement in Rembrandt's land- scapes with the curves of the female body, as the exhibition proposes, but his unproblem- atic combination of sources in his own draw-

ing is also important since he integrates elements from both the Italian and Dutch artists' technique.

Speed and a desire to capture the essence of a work characterise Rodin's own quick execution of his drawn copies after Rem- brandt's prints, such as the famous Self- portrait leaning (Fig.57). Surprisingly, the comprehensive exhibition catalogue does not address Rodin's inscription on this drawing: 'le chat bott' - the title of a popular children's story from the Contes de ma mire l'Oye in which the puss-in-boots cat brings good fortune to its owner. Rembrandt is, thus, a benchmark for Rodin's success and this work indicates his need for the Dutch artist's support and approval; as Rodin said after his trip to Holland, 'Je suis hereux d'avoir vu Rembrandt. C'est comme s'il itait revenue lui-mime pour me dire: tu ne t'es pas trompi, tu as bienfait.' This exhibition makes a substantial contribution to Rodin scholarship and its themes, particularly an artist's psycho- logical and artistic dependence on the past and the significant connexion between

Holland and France, are essential to any understanding of French art during Rodin's lifetime.

ALISON MCQUEEN

University of Pittsburgh

'Catalogue: Rodin et Holland. By Claudie Judrin with contributions from Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, John Sillevis and Jacques Vilain. 286 pp. with over 60 col. pls. and num. b. & w. ills. (Paris: Rodin Museum, 1996), 250 FF. ISBN 2-901-428-47-9. This exhi- bition was first seen at the Het Palais, The Hague. 2See also j. SILLEVIS: 'Rodin's First one-man show', THE

BURLINGTON MAGAZINE CXXXVII [1995], pp.832-37.

Lucca Medieval wood sculpture

Scultura lignea at the Palazzo Mansi and at the Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi in Lucca (until 30th June) is the result of years of cataloguing and restoration. Although its model and the inevitable term of comparison is the revealing exhibition of Sienese wood sculpture held nine years ago,1 this is perhaps unfair, since Lucca signifies a less important and smaller region (areas of which are not represented here), and slightly different aims guided the two exhibitions. But there is no lack of exciting sculptures and discoveries. The study of the collaboration between sculptors and painters brought forward in the Siena show is not pursued here, in part because the Lucchese material did not permit it, although the question surely could have been pondered more. In recompense, the stylistic analysis of the statues is highly perspicacious, and the whole of the second volume of the catalogue contains a first-rate series of conservation reports written by twenty conservators.2 The history of treat- ment is set out with a full array of descrip-

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