Rodin's 'The Thinker' auction expected to reach up to €14m
A posthumous cast of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin is to be auctioned on 30 June at Christie’s Paris with an estimated sale price of nine to 14 million euros .It was exhibited in New York on Friday and then in Hong Kong, before being displayed in Paris from 23 June.
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One of the most iconic works of art in the world, The Thinker (Le Penseur) features a man resting his chin on his hand and was originally conceived by French sculptor Rodin as a representation of Italian author Dante.
Around 40 copies of The Thinker are in existence, many of them made after Rodin's death in 1917.
The copy on sale in Paris, with its black and brown patina, was part of a private Parisian collection and was made in 1928 by the Alexis Rudier foundry that cast several of Rodin's most famous bronzes.
The Thinker was initially conceived as a much smaller sculpture in the 1880s, part of Rodin's Gates of Hell series based on Dante's The Divine Comedy.
It was later enlarged and became a standalone piece in 1904, when it was first exhibited at the Paris Fair.
The French state commissioned 26 copies of the statue between 1919 and 1969, and there have been long-running legal battles over other versions of the statue.
As well as copies at the Rodin Museum and his grave just outside Paris, some of the most valuable are found at Columbia University in New York, the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and the Ca'Pesaro museum in Venice.
The statue being auctioned at Christie's will go on tour showing in New York and Hong Kong before being presented in Paris from 23 June and auctioned on 30 June.
The record for a Rodin "Thinker" was set at a Sotheby's auction in New York in 2013, when one sold for $15.2 million (13,97 million euros).
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