Artwork Description
Camille Claudel – Rêve au coin du feu (Fireside Dream)
Dimensions: 8.75 x 12.5 x 9.75″
Year: 1905-1937 conceived 1899; bronze edition begun by Eugene Blot in 1905; finished in 1937
Medium: bronze and colored marble with functioning electric light
Edition: ed. of 65
From Musee Camille Claudel:
“In the 1890s, exasperated by critics who constantly compared her work to that of Rodin, Claudel sought a resolutely personal and modern aesthetic. The Sketches from Nature are the culmination of these reflections: Les Causeuses , La Vague, Rêve au coin du feu … Despite their abundance attested by the sources of the time, very few of these sculptures of reduced dimensions are known to have survived. Some were probably destroyed by the artist in moments of distress. Representing scenes observed in everyday life, they are particularly influenced by Japanese art, discovered by the artist at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 and in the collections of Parisian art enthusiasts. ”
Reve au coin du feu was conceived in 1899 and the bronze was cast by Eugene Blot in 1905, when he first exhibited the sculpture. The edition was not declared by Blot to be limited, and some of the edition feature numbers, while others do not. This was Claudel’s most successful sculpture on the art market in terms of sales. The bronze was combined with either marble or onyx. This precise Reve au coin du feu edition was exhibited in 2008 at the Rodin Museum, Paris, where it was seen and declared authentic by Claudel authority Reine Marie Paris. It was also part of the internationally touring exhibition in 2005 and 2006 in Quebec, Switzerland, and Detroit. Several versions of the edition are included in the major touring Claudel retrospective in 2023-2024 at the Art Institute of Chicago and the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Galerie Malaquais has assembled extensive scholarship on this edition: “According to documents established in 1937 by Eugène Blot [1] , Camille Claudel’s publisher and dealer, Rêve au coin du feu was printed in 65 copies, making it the artist’s most widely distributed model, with a few more tests than the Implorante, small model . Dream by the Fireplace , the most melted work of all Camille Claudel’s sculptures, nevertheless remains very rare both in museums and on the art market, and this is not the least of its paradoxes.
I/ Context of creation and first exhibitions of the work
From the early 1890s to 1900, Camille Claudel worked on small subjects that she called her “sketches from nature”. These subjects draw their source from the observation of reality, then are transposed and miniaturized by the artist: Les Causeuses (1893-1905), Woman reading a letter (around 1895-1897), La Vague (1897-1903), make part of this series, closed by the two “ Chimney ”, a designation used by the artist herself.
The first of the two fireplaces, created in 1898, is the Profonde Pensée , also called La Buche de Noël . It represents a woman kneeling in front of a fireplace and resting her head on its lintel. It was exhibited in bronze [2] , at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1898: “36.- Deep thought (sketch from nature, bronze statuette)” [3] . It appeared again, this time entirely in marble, at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Then, it was presented in 1905, at the exhibition of the works of Camille Claudel organized by the Eugène Blot gallery, in its premises on Boulevard de la Madeleine. It is then a copy of the Eugène Blot edition, that is to say in marble and bronze.
The second fireplace, Dream by the Fireside , studied here, represents a woman seated on a chair, her head resting on the lintel of the fireplace. It was commissioned in marble, probably in 1899, by the Countess de Maigret, Camille Claudel’s main patron at that period. The following year, the work was exhibited in this same material at the Universal Exhibition held in Paris [4] .
It is worth recalling the place occupied by Camille Claudel, aged thirty-five, in the French statute at the dawn of the 20th century . She is barely visible in the shadow of Rodin, then at the height of his glory at the age of sixty. In addition, the woman she is suffers from isolation, recurring money problems and deteriorating mental health.
Like Profonde Pensée , Rêve au coin du feu then appeared during the exhibition of the works of Camille Claudel at Eugène Blot in 1905, in a marble and bronze print which belonged to the edition made by its dealer.
The gallery owner’s exhibition catalog does not specify that the “ Chimneys ” are made of two materials. However, it is clear that in the proofs of its edition, the entire sculpture is in bronze, with the exception of the fireplace mantle, which is in marble. On the other hand, it indicates that the Profonde Pensée is an edition with a limited edition of 50 copies while no edition limitation is announced for Rêve au coin du feu . The two works do not seem to be part of the two other exhibitions highlighting works by Camille Claudel organized by the Eugène Blot gallery in 1907 and 1908. On the other hand, after the 1905 exhibition, the two “ Cheminée ” are permanently on display on sale at the Eugène Blot gallery.
II/ Study of Dreams by the Fireside
The two marbles
Before Eugène Blot acquired, from Camille Claudel, the model of Rêve au coin du feu in order to publish it in 1905, two marbles were executed: the one mentioned above, commissioned by the Countess de Maigret (today preserved in the collections of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, inv. 2018.88 ) and that given by Alphonse de Rothschild in 1903 to the Draguignan museum (inv. 255), currently on loan to the Camille Claudel museum in Nogent-sur-Seine.
The one that belonged to the Countess de Maigret remained in her descendants, until recently joining the collections of the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco [5] . It is not dated, but bears the signature “Camille Claudel”. The marble from the Draguignan museum is signed and dated on the left side of the base plinth: “C. Claudel 1903”. Subtle differences in treatment allow the two works to be distinguished: fine tiles are traced in the Draguignan marble which are not found in that of San Francisco; the lion-shaped andirons are just outlined in that of San Francisco, while they are more advanced in that of Draguignan. The design of the fireplace mantle of the two works has different details, as do the chairs and plinths of the base.
The Fireside Dreams edited by Eugène Blot
Dream by the Fireside is part of a set of works by Camille Claudel edited by Eugène Blot. For this model, the edition seems to begin in 1905 and end in 1937, when Blot sold his Camille Claudel models with their printing rights to Leblanc-Barbedienne. A writing by Eugène Blot, written around thirty years after the start of publishing, explains: “As [ Rêve au coin du feu ] sold a lot and the great artist always needed money, she made me another figure in front of a fireplace called La Bûche de Noël [or La Profonde Pensée ]” [6] . Eugène Blot is probably wrong, because it was shown above that Profonde Pensée , exhibited before Dream by the Fireside , predates it. Camille Claudel suggested making a third fireplace, certainly in 1905 [7] , but this project does not seem to have materialized, because no trace of such an edition has appeared to date.
The two “ Cheminée ” were published with a pilot light inside the hearth, connected to electricity, but few proofs have preserved it until today: “I had a big sales success by placing behind the logs of these fireplaces, especially the first, a red bulb to make night lights” [8] .
The proofs of Dream by the Fireside published by Eugène Blot known to date always include two materials: the fireplace is in marble (white or colored [9] ) and the rest of the work in bronze. The shape of the chimney may vary slightly.
Some tests are numbered and others are not. In the catalog of the exhibition organized by the Eugène Blot gallery in December 1905, the work is listed without limitation of edition. Likewise, when Eugène Blot presents Camille Claudel’s models that he published at the Barbedienne house with the aim of transferring their exploitation to them, the work is indicated as an unlimited edition [10] .
Three prints from the Blot edition belong to public collections:
-The first, in white marble and bronze and without numbering, is kept at the Camille Claudel museum in Nogent-sur-Seine (inv. n°2010.1.20).
-The second, in colored marble and bronze, numbered 19, entered the collections of the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington DC in 2017 (Gift from Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, inv. n°2017.44).
-The third, in white marble and bronze, numbered 16, entered the collections of the National Museum of Stockholm in 2023 (inv. NMSk 2418).
III/ A simple “sketch from nature? »
Critical reception of Dream by the Fire at the beginning of the 20th century
Some articles, which criticize Rêve au coin du feu at the beginning of the century, deserve to be cited here. As soon as it appeared at the decennial exhibition in 1900 [11] , Rêve au coin du feu received laudatory words from Gustave Geffroy in La Vie Artistique : he noted its “robust grace” and its “magnificent living expression” [12 ] . But Émile Dacier, in an article published in 1905 in the Bulletin de l’art ancien et moderne [13] , was not convinced by the artist’s proposals when she treated so-called naturalist scenes: he preferred his subjects more strong.
On the contrary, the author of the article published in 1906 in Psyché , understands the choices and daring of Camille Claudel in this work: “The finesse of the beings that she sculpts appears to me as a direct result of a nervous system extremely ramified, abundant in tactile endings, more diversified even than that of Rodin (In this one it is a giant who caresses mousmés, -Mlle Claudel seems a more enveloping, less sexual mother…) And her physiological energy seems to be nothing but tension of the nerves, sudden impulse, monideistic concentration, and perhaps even a way of mysticism that Rodin, closer to earth, does not have. In total everything we are used to calling feminine sensitivity and lyricism. The discreet poetry of pieces like Au Coin du Feu is exquisitely delicate: their inner soul will remain as a precise notation of the gentleness of the modern, thinking woman. [14]
The reception of the work upon its creation therefore oscillates between two poles: on the one hand, the recognition without great enthusiasm of a good work, but lacking the magnitude of other creations of the artist; on the other hand, the deep understanding of what is given to feel and which makes this model a masterpiece, in a form of beauty full of restraint and interiority.
Paul Claudel and the Dream by the Fireside
In his own way, Paul Claudel himself sometimes oscillates between these two poles [15] . If he does not speak directly about Dream by the Fireplace before 1940, he provides keys from 1913 to understand it, explaining how his sister’s works summon meditation and poetry: “…now banned from the public square and the outdoors, sculpture, like the other arts, withdraws into this solitary room where the poet shelters his forbidden dreams. Camille Claudel is the first worker on this interior sculpture” [16] . Then, in October 1940, Paul Claudel developed a reflection on the soul based on the sculpture of his sister in a text entitled “Sitting and looking at the fire” [17] . In 1951, he spoke of the first fireplace, Profound Thought , in the text he signed in the catalog of the Camille Claudel exhibition at the Rodin Museum. But these few lines can also be applied to Dream by the Fireside : “Later, it is this woman on her knees that she [Camille Claudel] will sell to the publisher Bloch (sic), we must live! A red lamp in the fireplace and the woman is silhouetted in black. The effect is amusing” [18] . Paul Claudel therefore also looks at Dream by the Fireside as a work sold by his sister to her publisher for a living, without dwelling on its plastic qualities, and emphasizing what the work has become: a trinket serving as a night light. But the last time he fully evokes the work, on January 22, 1946 in Brangues, it is to explain that he sees in it a representation of his sister: “… a woman sitting and looking at the fire. I associated it with the infinitely painful image of this sister herself…” [19] . Camille Claudel certainly gave form in this sculpture to the feelings that powerfully inhabited her and the autobiographical character is very probable, although it has been the subject of a complete transposition.
The critical fortunes of Fireside Dream since the 1980s
Since the gradual rediscovery of Camille Claudel’s work during the 1980s, the authors who studied Dream by the Fireside have also tended towards two quite opposite attitudes, some seeing in this sculpture a simple illustrative subject, a bit banal [20] , made from nature, others appreciating this astonishing work, rich in multiple interpretations.
It is these interpretations of the work that Laure de Margerie explores in her article published in 2005 [21] and which are taken up here, and sometimes extended. Thus, Laure de Margerie notes that Rêve au coin du feu goes beyond the illustration and is based on solid work of choice by the artist: “Even if the trigger perhaps comes from the observation of the real, Camille strips her characters, removing from them any connotation hic et nunc…” [22] . This is immediately obvious for La Vague and Les Causeuses , less so for Rêve au coin du feu , because the woman remains dressed. However, she appears barefoot and in a garment, a dress, which gives no indication of an era, a season, or any temporal period whatsoever. Added to this are strange details that seem to come from a fairy tale, to which one of the titles of the work, Cinderella , makes a good reference. These details are the two andirons in the shape of seated lions, left in sketch form, or one of the bars of the chair, the one located on the front of the work, which is missing and replaced by a species starting from a broken tree branch [23] .
This particular atmosphere, outside of time, where everything is not said, allows the imagination to wander, especially as the woman’s head resting on the lintel of the fireplace invites you to escape into your thoughts: ” In the Cheminées series , silence reigns. It follows the chatter of the Causeuses and the crash of the waves of La Vague ” [24] . It is true that the crackling of the fire is barely heard, although it is the central element of the composition: “By its hypnotic power, its contemplation leads to a half-dream state in which the mind leaves the body to wander into an elsewhere which is almost a beyond” [25] . In the Blot editions, the bronze fire is revived by the red night light, while in the two marbles, the fire is amplified by the drawing of smoke on the fireback. Françoise Magny recalls in this regard: “The fireplace, image of the home, of comfort, or on the contrary, of solitude, is also a symbol of the unconscious and secret aspirations” [26] .
In 2001, another author, the psychoanalyst Danielle Arnoux, used Rêve au coin du feu as part of a reflection on Camille Claudel’s mental disorders in her book entitled Camille Claudel, l’ironique sacrifice . She explains that the artist’s complaints about the mass reproduction of small fireplaces is part of his paranoia and puts forward the hypothesis that this delusional focus perhaps comes from the decline or cessation of his creativity [27] . In 2011, in the book Camille Claudel. Re-enchanting the work , she returns to Dream by the Fireside to focus this time on its status as an art object [28] . She explains that the artists of this period seek to escape from academicism by showing, among other things, that there is no boundary between sculpture alone and decorative sculpture. “So much so that intimate works sold as decorative objects by Eugène Blot, for example these Petites Cheminées transformed into bedside lamps, which may have been looked at with a little contempt, judged minor, are revalued as authentic creations” [29 ] . It thus highlights the power of Rêve au coin du feu , which hides its depth beneath an apparent simplicity.
Selected bibliography
-1898 CATALOG: Illustrated catalog of the National Society of Fine Arts , 1898, p. 48.
– 1900 CATALOG: Paris. Universal International Exhibition of 1900 , general official catalog, group II-Works of art-Classes 7 to 10.
– 1901 GEFFROY: Gustave GEFFROY, “Memories of the 1900 exhibition”, in La Vie Artistique , 7th series , 1901, p. 291.
– 1905 DACIER: Émile DACIER, Untitled article, in Bulletin de l’art ancien et moderne , December 9, 1905.
– 1906 LT: “The exhibitions. Two sculptors”, in Psyché , p. 103-104, Paris, April 1906.
– 1913 CLAUDEL: Paul Claudel, “Camille Claudel” (reprinted from L’Occident , 1905), in L’Art Décoratif , July 1913.
-1951 CLAUDEL: Paul Claudel, “My sister Camille”, text from the catalog of the Camille Claudel exhibition , Paris, Musée Rodin, 1951.
– 1964 CLAUDEL: Paul Claudel, “The Rose and the Rosary”, in Complete Works , t. XXI, Paris, Gallimard, 1964.
– 1983 RIVIÈRE: Anne RIVIÈRE, The forbidden, Camille Claudel (1864-1943) , Paris, Tierce, 1983.
– 1984 GAUDICHON: Bruno GAUDICHON, “Catalogue raisonné of the sculpted, painted and engraved work…”, in catalog of the Camille Claudel (1864-1943) exhibition , Paris, Rodin museum and Poitiers, Sainte-Croix museum, 1984, n°95b, p. 121 (and for the notice on the two Chimneys , see n°32, p.80-81, marble copy, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255).
– 1984 PARIS: Reine-Marie PARIS, Camille Claudel , Paris, Gallimard, 1984, p. 366 and 297 (marble copy reproduced, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255).
– 1990 CATALOG: Tourcoing, museum of fine arts, My brother , Edition of the museum of fine arts, 1990, p. 14.
– 1990 PARIS-LA CHAPELLE: Reine-Marie PARIS, Arnaud de LA CHAPELLE, The Work of Camille Claudel , Paris, Adam Biro-Arhis, 1990 (reissued in 1991), nº56, p.189-190 (marble copy reproduced, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255).
– 1991 CATALOG: Paris, Musée Rodin, Camille Claudel , written by Nicole Barbier, preface by Jacques Vilain, 1991.
– 1995 BOUTÉ: Gérard BOUTÉ, Camille Claudel. The mirror and the night, Paris, Éditions de l’Amateur-Éditions des catalogs raisonnés, 1995, p. 199-201 (marble and bronze copy reproduced, part coll.).
– 1996 RIVIÈRE-GAUDICHON-GHANASSIA: Anne RIVIÈRE, Bruno GAUDICHON, Danielle GHANASSIA, Camille Claudel. Catalog raisonné , Paris, Adam Biro, 1996, n°59.4, p. 148-149 (reproduced marble copy, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255).
– 1998 CLAUDEL: Paul CLAUDEL, The Poet and the Bible , tI, Gallimard, 1998.
– 2001 RIVIÈRE-GAUDICHON: Anne RIVIÈRE, Bruno GAUDICHON, “Catalogue raisonné”, in Camille Claudel, Catalog raisonné, third expanded edition , Paris, Adam Biro, 2001, n°61.4, p. 178.
– 2005 CATALOG: Quebec, national museum of fine arts – Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Camille Claudel and Rodin. The Meeting of Two Destiny , Hazan, 2005, n°88, p. 240 (copy in marble and bronze reproduced).
– 2008 CATALOG: Madrid, Fundación Mapfre, Paris, Musée Rodin, Camille Claudel 1864-1943 , Gallimard, 2008, p. 313 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, part coll.).
– 2008 RIONNET: Florence RIONNET, La maison Barbedienne: Correspondences of artists , CTHS Édition, 2008.
– 2008 RIVIÈRE: Anne RIVIÈRE, “The busts of Paul Claudel by Camille Claudel”, Bulletin of the Paul Claudel Society , n°191, September 1990, p. 31-40.
– 2011 ARNOUX 1: Danielle ARNOUX, Camille Claudel, the ironic sacrifice , Paris, EPEL, 2011, p. 250.
– 2011 ARNOUX 2: Danielle ARNOUX, Camille Claudel. Re-enchantment of the work , Paris, EPEL, 2011, p. 148-149.
– 2012 CATALOG. : Morestel, Maison Ravier, Camille and Paul Claudel 1885-1905: two artists at work , AMRA Edition, 2012, p. 31 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20).
– 2012 PARIS: Reine-Marie PARIS, Dear Camille Claudel, History of a collection , Paris, Culture Économica, 2012, n°16 of the illustrations (copy in marble and bronze reproduced, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n °inv.2010.1.20).
– 2013 AYRAL-CLAUSE: Odile AYRAL-CLAUSE, Camille Claudel, Her life , Paris, Hazan, 2013, p. 172.
– 2013 CLAUDEL: Camille CLAUDEL, Correspondence , Edition by Anne Rivière and Bruno Gaudichon, 3rd revised and expanded edition, Gallimard, 2013.
– 2013 CATALOG: Avignon, Palais des Papes and Collection Lambert in Avignon, Les Papesses, Camille Claudel, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Jana Sterbak, Berlinde de Bruyckere , Arles, Actes Sud, p. 346 (reproduced marble copy, Draguignan, art and history museum, inv. n°255).
– 2014 CATALOG: Roubaix, La Piscine – museum of art and industry André-Diligent, Camille Claudel In the mirror of an Art Nouveau , Gallimard editions La Piscine -Roubaix, 2014, p. 137 (marble copy reproduced, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255) and p. 219 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20).
– 2014 LE NORMAND-ROMAIN: Antoinette LE NORMAND-ROMAIN, Camille Claudel & Rodin . Time will put everything back in place , Paris, Musée Rodin, Hermann Éditeurs, 2014, p. 104-105 (reproduced marble copy, Draguignan, art and history museum, inv. n°255).
– 2014 PARIS-CRESSENT: Reine-Marie PARIS, Philippe CRESSENT, Camille Claudel, complete works , Paris, Culture Économica, 2014, n°280, p. 570-571 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20).
– 2014 RIVIÈRE-GAUDICHON: Anne Rivière, Bruno Gaudichon, Camille Claudel, Correspondence , Edition of Anne Rivière and Bruno Gaudichon, 3rd revised and expanded edition, coll. “Art and Artists”, Gallimard, 2014, p. 237 (plaster copy reproduced).
– 2017 MAGNY: Françoise MAGNY, Guide to the Camille Claude Nogent-sur-Seine museum collections , Lienart, 2017, p. 351 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20).
– 2018 CATALOG: Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, Camille Claudel, Paul Claudel: The dream and the life , Lienart, 2018, p. 74-75 (reproduced marble copy, Draguignan, museum of art and history, n°inv.255).
– 2019 PARIS-CRESSENT: Reine-Marie PARIS, Philippe CRESSENT, Camille Claudel Catalog raisonné, 5th revised , corrected and expanded edition, Paris, Culture Économica, 2019, n°112-3, p. 696 (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20).
– 2020 NANTET: Marie-Victoire NANTET, Camille and Paul Claudel, Lines of division , Gallimard, 2020, p. 168-170 and p. 4 of the illustrations (reproduced copy in marble and bronze, Nogent-sur-Seine, Camille Claudel museum, n°inv.2010.1.20”