[RODIN] DORNAC, Paul Cardon, dit (1858-1941)

[RODIN] DORNAC, Paul Cardon, dit (1858-1941)

Original photograph on albumen paper
[Paris, 22 July 1898], 122 x 177 mm
Framed in walnut (268 × 323 mm), with beige mount and 92% museum glass.
In fine condition throughout, with nice contrasts.

Famous portrait of Rodin, posing before his Monument to Sarmiento

This celebrated portrait of the sculptor was taken in his studio at the Dépôt des Marbres, 182 rue de l’Université, on 22 July 1898. Of imposing stature, Rodin appears to have been caught unawares, in his working clothes, hands slipped into his pockets and his gaze fixed on the lens. In the background, one can make out the base of his Monument to Sarmiento as well as his working tools.

Active from the late 1880s until the First World War, the brilliant Dornac specialised in portraits of notable figures photographed not in the studio but in their private spaces, at home or in their places of work, following a principle of contextualisation that admitted only rare exceptions. He is the author of the series Nos contemporains chez eux (1887-1917), which comprises more than four hundred photographs of major figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries drawn from the literary, artistic, musical, scientific and political spheres.