{"id":180073,"date":"2025-06-13T03:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T03:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/180073\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T03:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T03:36:17","slug":"rediscovery-of-rodins-despair-and-lessons-in-rejuvenation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/180073\/","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovery of Rodin\u2019s Despair \u2014 and lessons in rejuvenation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tJun 13, 2025 07:45 IST\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tFirst published on: Jun 13, 2025 at 07:45 IST\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<ul class=\"tabs-listing\">\n<li class=\"author-tab share-btn\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/wp-content\/themes\/indianexpress\/images\/opinion\/images\/iconly-regular-outline-send.svg\" alt=\"share-btn\" height=\"19\" width=\"19\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Share<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"author-tab print-article\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/wp-content\/themes\/indianexpress\/images\/print.svg\" alt=\"prrint-btn\" height=\"19\" width=\"19\"\/><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For years, it sat atop the family piano, a purported reproduction of a piece from Auguste Rodin\u2019s monumental The Gates of Hell. Now, the 11-inch sculpture of a woman clutching her foot, locked in an eternal posture of defeat, has pirouetted into the limelight, fetching nearly a million dollars at an auction in France after it was outed as the real thing: Rodin\u2019s Le D\u00e9sespoir (Despair). Created in 1890 and last sold in 1906, it was only rediscovered when the auctioneer chanced upon what the family thought was a fake last year. With the authentication, it has become a windfall for its unsuspecting owners.<\/p>\n<p>The course of art history, of course, is not entirely new to such serendipitous events. R\u00f3bert Ber\u00e9ny\u2019s Sleeping Lady with Black Vase, a 1927-28 art deco portrait of his wife, Eta, was rediscovered in 2009 when historian Gergely Barki spotted it in the background of the movie Stuart Little during a <a rel=\"noamphtml noopener\" class=\"keywordtourl\" href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/about\/christmas\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christmas<\/a> watch with his daughter. The painting, thought to be lost, had been picked up by a set designer from an antique shop in California and found its way into the movie as a prop. Vincent Van Gogh\u2019s unsigned Sunset at Montmajour from Norwegian industrialist Christian Nicolai Mustad\u2019s private collection had been left to languish in the estate attic after being dismissed as a forgery. Discovered after Mustad\u2019s death, it was finally authenticated in 2013.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"lazyloading\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-type=\"lazyloading-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/track_1x1.jpg\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/track_1x1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1px\" height=\"1px\" style=\"display:none;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Misplaced, mislabelled, folded into the fabric of the everyday, forgotten in time, such stories reveal art\u2019s stubborn endurance and its implicit ability to thaw into rapture. In literature, for instance, Franz Kafka, convinced of his own futility, had requested that his writings be destroyed after his death. That his friend Max Brod demurred turned Kafka\u2019s anguish into modernist gold. What Despair\u2019s reversal in fortune shows, then, is that genius mislaid is not genius lost. And that sometimes, the divide between gloom and glory is as fragile as a fleeting glance. In the right light \u2014 and with the right eye \u2014 despair may yet delight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jun 13, 2025 07:45 IST First published on: Jun 13, 2025 at 07:45 IST Share For years, it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,8152,74073,74072,74076,74074,74075,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-180073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-indian-express","13":"tag-le-desespoir","14":"tag-rodin-sculpture","15":"tag-rodin-sculpture-art-auction","16":"tag-rodin-sculpture-art-authentication","17":"tag-the-gates-of-hell","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114673967861323803","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}