Auguste Rodin

Musée Rodin, Paris
Eugène Rudier, Le Vésinet (acquired from the above)
M. Massot-Pellet, France (acquired in 1970)
Sale: Hôtel Drouot Paris, 1 April 1975
Edgardo Acosta, Los Angeles (acquired at the above sale)
Georges Sakelaris, Portland (acquired from the above)
Steve Banks Fine Arts, San Francisco
Joe R. & Teresa L. Long, Texas (acquired from the above on 16 January 1998)

L. Maillard, Auguste Rodin, Statuaire, Paris, 1899, pp. 121-22 (another version illustrated)
G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, p. 42, nos. 69-70 (another version illustrated)
J. Cladel, Rodin, London, 1936, p. 97 (marble version illustrated)
G. Grappe, Le Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, no. 87, pl. 56 (another version illustrated)
R. Descharnes & J. F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, London & Melbourne, 1967, p. 134 (another version illustrated)
I. Jianou & C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, nos. 56-57, pls. 56-57 (another cast illustrated)
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, p. 246, no. 32b (another version illustrated)
P. Gassier, Rodin, Martigny, 1984, p. 111, no. 63 (another cast illustrated)
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 334, no. S.777 (another cast illustrated)

This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Critique de l'oeuvre sculpté d'Auguste Rodin currently being prepared by the Comité Rodin in collaboration with Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2019-5939B. 

Also known as Zéphyr et la terre and Cupidon et Psyché, Rodin’s L'Éternel printemps was exhibited at the Salon of 1897 and has become one of his best-known works. It was conceived during an intense period of creativity while Rodin was mapping out La Porte de l’enfer, and like its twin, Le Baiser, also recalls Dante’s story of Paolo and Francesca who were condemned to spend eternity locked in passionate embrace. The carnality of the model marks a shift from his earlier classical and allegorical depictions of love to more sensual representations and daring poses.

"No one could make bodies ‘speak’ better than Rodin" writes Norman-Romain. "At the peak of his powers, aided by the youth and openness of the models who posed for him, he conveyed his own euphoria in [Eternal Springtime] with a very skillful composition, built on an X, whose elegant forms, enhanced by the languidness of the bodies and the delicacy of the embrace, made it one of his most highly acclaimed works" (A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 335).