Winter 2015
Art & Auctions
Bacchus in the Vat
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
France
Marble
Musée Rodin, Paris
© musée Rodin (photo Christian Baraja)
Rodin carried on a fertile dialogue with antiquity since his younger years until his death. He had a vast collection of antiques from which he drew a great deal of inspiration. Bacchus in the Vat is the result of a creative process that began with one of the works in his collection: an antique terracotta kylisc. Rodin brought the central motif of the piece to life in this sculpture. The process took several steps, one of them an assemblage made up of a Bacchus pulling himself out of a sort of vat, in this case a Greek vase.