marble, carved in marble after 1900 (the plaster being executed in 1890)
Sotheby's New York. This work belonged to a series in which Rodin explored the relationship between mother and child or brother and sister. As early as 1865-1870 in Jeune Femme et enfant Rodin had handled this theme that appeared sporadically thereafter, for example as the base of the left pilaster of The Gates of Hell, but it was until the latter part of the 1880's, that he turned his attention to love in its less threatening manifestations. In pose the older sister in the present work is related to one of the grandest of Rodin's partial figures Etude de jeune femme assise (Cybèle) for which the popular model Mme Abruzzezzi had posed. Rodin developed this figure in Galatée and in the present work although in keeping with the subject, he modified its proportions. The rigid position of the girl and her self-involvement create a sense of timeless tranquillity, while her active brother seeks to attract her attention. She muses quietly perhaps on her own emerging womanhood and on her future role as a mother. Despite the psychological barriers separating the two figures, this tender group conveys intimacy and charm, without the sentimentality of many contemporaneous treatments of the theme of adult and child. This sculpture carried an estimate of between US $ 500,000 and 700,000.
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