Art Chowder November | December, Issue 18 | Page 38

O
f equal note, Rodin was happy
to supply a growing demand for
reproductions of his works. By
means of a mechanical invention
by the French engineer Achille
Collas — the Collas machine
(which worked on the principle
of the pantograph) — the artist’s
assistants could reduce or enlarge
replicas of the original to any size
requested. 3 The Saint John the
Baptist Preaching was available
in 19-, 32-, and 79-inch versions. 4
This process required considerable
skill on the part of the operators,
especially since products not up
to the master’s standards would
be rejected, but approved results
from this technology would prove
lucrative for Rodin.
A Diagram of the Collas Machine
1838
Wikimedia Commons
Artists have long catered to the
market for reproductions of their
works. Painters have been known
to paint copies of their own
compositions, but a better analogy
to the reproduction of original
sculptures is original prints. The
mold made from the sculptor’s
clay model is not the artwork; the
bronze casting is. Likewise, the
plate engraved by Dürer or the
etching plate by Rembrandt are
not the artwork; the final prints are
counted as “multiple originals.”
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
Saint John the Baptist Preaching, modeled ca. 1880
Musée Rodin cast, number unknown, in 1925
Bronze; Alexis Rudier Foundry
Lent by Iris Cantor