Large Clenched Hand with Imploring Figure (Torso of The Centauress)

“Rodin accumulates these studies of details; the cabinets in his studio are full of studies of parts, torsos, hands. He has investigated, with passion, the expressions of the human hand,” wrote the French Symbolist critic Gustave Kahn in 1906. This sculpture offers an excellent example of Auguste Rodin’s technique of assembling separate fragments to create new independent works, appearing to combine the torso of The Centauress of 1887 with the arms of another sculpture, The Despairing Adolescent of 1882. The result is a confrontation between a delicate, vulnerable figure, and an overwhelming physical force that together create a dramatic tension characteristic of Rodin’s work. Art dealer Max Stern, head of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal from 1942 to 1987, became fascinated with Rodin’s bronze works in the early 1960s. He undertook the North American promotion of the posthumous casts, produced under the guidance of the Musée Rodin, Paris, which holds the moral rights to the artist’s work.