When Rodin was pleased with a sketch from life, he copied or traced the composition onto a new sheet, adding washes for skin tone and hair color. He might then rework the drawing further by reinforcing certain areas with graphite and highlighting with watercolor and gouache. In this example, the artist maintains the tenderness of the couple’s embrace while creating a sense of vibration and energy through vigorous graphite strokes and yellow and blue watercolor mixed with gouache.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Embrace
Artist:Auguste Rodin (French, Paris 1840–1917 Meudon)
Date:1900–1910
Medium:Graphite, watercolor, and gouache
Dimensions:12 13/16 x 9 7/8 in. (32.5 x 25.1 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1910
Accession Number:10.66.6
Signature: Lower right, in graphite: Aug Rodin
Photo Secession Gallery. "An Exhibition of Recent and Early Drawings and Water-Colors by Auguste Rodin," March 1, 1910–April 1, 1910.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sculptors' Drawings: 1900–1935," November 10, 1994–March 26, 1995, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," May 5–September 14, 1998.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," July 27–October 25, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," January 9–March 25, 2012.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nudes: Drawings by Sculptors," October 20, 2014–January 25, 2015, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rodin at The Met," September 16, 2017–February 4, 2018.
Photo Secession: Exhibition of Drawings by Auguste Rodin. Edward J. Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, New York, March 31 - April 16, 1910, cat. no. 33.
Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler, Antoine-Emile Bourdelle Rodin: Later Drawings. Boston, 1963, fig. no. 9, pp. 26-27.
Albert Elsen, J. Kirk T. Varnedoe, Victoria Thorson, Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler The Drawings of Rodin. Ex. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1971, fig. no. 141, p. 175.
Clare Vincent "Rodin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, A History of the Collection." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 38, no. 4, Spring 1981, fig. no. 19.
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain Rodin. Abbeville Press, New York and London, 2014, fig. no. 264, pp. 276 and 344, ill.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
