He exceeded the expectations of the Rouillac sales house. A small marble of the sculptor Auguste Rodin, Found by chance between Sologne and Berry, was sold for 860,000 euros during a sale organized this weekend at the Château de Villandry (Indre-et-Loire).
Qualified as “extremely rare marble” by Aymeric Rouillac, one of the auctioneers organizing this sale, “despair”, made around 1892, remained unknown to its French owners, who thought it was a copy.
Variant taken from the famous Porte de l’Enfer, The marble represents a seated woman, folded on herself and holding her foot. The white marble sculpture, which measures 28.5 cm high, had been priced 500,000 euros.
At the origin of the discovery, customers “came for anything else” and who thought that the sculpture that has long been enthroned on the piano next to family photos was “a false”, had explained in May to AFP Aymeric Rouillac.
Confirmation of the Rodin Committee
For several months, with his teams and specialists, the auctioneer first conducted a family investigation by the family. With promising results, Aymeric Rouillac presented the marble to the Rodin committee in March and received confirmation of the authenticity of “despair” a month and a half later.
The committee confirmed that this marble “had already passed into an auction in 1906 and that it had then disappeared from traffic. So we found it, ”said Aymeric Rouillac.
