Auguste Rodin Encourages François Flameng - Signed Autograph Letter. C. 1883

A warm letter of support for the painter François Flameng.

"That beautiful night you sent is well worth seeing at the Cercle des Arts Libéraux, alongside the other works."

Autograph letter signed by Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) to the painter François Flameng (1856–1923).

No place, no date [circa 1883]. 1 p. in-12 on a double sheet. Dimensions: 13 x 10 cm

Like François Flameng, Auguste Rodin was a member of the Cercle des Arts Libéraux, located on Rue Vivienne in Paris, and exhibited there in 1883 his first preparatory drawings for his famous Gate of Hell.

Founded in the early 1880s, the Cercle des arts libéraux was a society of artists, writers, and art lovers that organized highly popular exhibitions every winter, offering painters and sculptors a space for creative competition and greater freedom of expression than the official Salon.

In 1883, Auguste Rodin, then forty-two years old, took on the role of a benevolent mentor to François Flameng, a young painter sixteen years his junior, whose artistic explorations he warmly encouraged.

A lovely signature.

"My dear Flameng,

Your lovely landscape—or rather, that beautiful night scene you sent—deserves to be seen alongside the other works at the Cercle des Arts Libéraux.

That is my opinion, and from what I hear around me, it is a very beautiful piece.

Yours devotedly

A. Rodin"