French auction house owner Aymeric Rouillac had no idea what lay in store for him when a collector from Berry contacted him about an item for possible sale.
While visiting, he came upon something else of interest: a rare small sculpture by the French Modernist giant Auguste Rodin. The piece, measuring just under a foot high, hid in plain sight atop the owner’s piano at their home; the family was unaware of its value before the auctioneer came across it in late 2024. “So we rediscovered it,” Rouillac told France 24.
Founded in 1983 and operating salesrooms in Paris, Vendôme, and Tours, Rouillac sold the work in its “Garden Party” sale, held at the Château de Villandry, a castle in western France. Bidding stretched over 20 minutes, with collectors from China, Switzerland and the United States vying for the prize. A young banker from the U.S. West Coast took it home for $1.2 million.
The piece had last come to auction in Paris in 1906 and bore a high estimate of €700,000 ($800,000). This is the house’s 16th million-dollar sale, and it set a record for a rendition of this subject by Rodin.
Le Désespoir (ca. 1892–93) is an allegory of despair; the white marble sculpture shows a seated nude woman, her right leg drawn up close to her body, her left leg extended, with her hands holding her left foot.
The piece is believed to have sold first to the financier Alexandre Blanc, then to have gone to auction in 1906, when it sold for 4,100 francs, then to Paris dealer Eugène Finschhof and Paris collector Paul Chevallier, before going to the seller.