Description

FIRST EDITION. 

SIGNED AUTOGRAPH ENVOI to Rose Beuret :

"To my dear wife and friend
Auguste Rodin

is mitre-mounted autograph letter signed to the same :

"My dear Rose
I spent 8 days in Paris.
Take the opportunity to save yourself a little.
I'll be happy if you do, go and see your cousin,
take a few walks.
Your Augustus".

Rose Beuret, Rodin's lifelong companion.

The eldest daughter of a family of Champagne winegrowers had no education, and could read but barely write. She earned a little money working for Madame Paul, for whom she made artificial flowers and feathers for hats. In the mornings, she posed for artists

A simple washerwoman from Champagne, she met Rodin when he was working on the pediment of the Gobelins theatre in Paris in 1864. She gave birth to a son, Auguste, served as his model (Mignon, Bellone, L'Alsacienne), and occasionally as his studio boy, taking care of the clay and plaster casts during the sculptor's absences. As time went by and Rodin's career progressed, a gap opened up between them, as they shared nothing more than the rudimentary simplicity of married life, which Rose looked after.

When she met Rodin in 1864, the eldest daughter of a family of winegrowers from the Champagne region had no formal education, knowing how to read but barely how to write. She earned a little money working for Madame Paul, for whom she made artificial flowers and feathers for hats. In the mornings, she poses for artists. He, the son of an office boy at the police headquarters, had only one obsession: sculpture. Until then, he had only employed "Bibi", a poor man with a bruised face who swept up his workshop for a few pennies. The result was his first masterpiece, "Man with a Broken Nose", which failed to make an impact at the Paris Salon in 1875. Rose's arrival in his life was a stroke of luck, as Auguste could not afford professional models. "She attached herself to me like an animal", he would later confide. Her little cat face inspired the pretty "Young Woman with a Flowered Hat" (1864). She gave him a son, Auguste. Rodin never recognised him. Rose was first and foremost a galley companion.

"She attached herself to me like an animal", he would later confide. Her little cat face inspired the pretty "Young Woman with a Flowered Hat" (1864).

I worked fourteen hours a day and only rested on Sundays," says the sculptor. Then my wife and I would go to some guinguette for a big meal, at 3 francs for the two of us, which was our reward for the week."

n 1871, Carrier-Belleuse, the fashionable sculptor, took Rodin to Belgium. It was Rose's job to look after the studio and incubate the sketches: "Take good care of my waxes," he wrote to her. When you wet my face, don't get it too wet so that the legs don't feel too soft. I'm glad you're looking after my plaster casts and my terracottas."

Auguste Rodin decided to marry Rose Beuret on 29 January 1917. He was 77; she 73. A touching union of two old men. In a photo taken in their garden, Rose has a lost look in her eyes and looks like an old peasant woman in a black shawl. She died of pneumonia two weeks after their wedding. With the steps of a cripple, Auguste contemplates her on her deathbed: "She is as beautiful as a statue.

Sad, silent and weakened, the virtuoso stopped working. He died on 17 November 1917, secluded in his villa at Les Brillants. Mired in the war, the government ruled out the possibility of a state funeral. Auguste and Rose were laid to rest side by side in Meudon, in a tomb inscribed with a huge "Thinker". Forever inseparable.