Tatiana Rachewskaia (1887-1910) was a wealthy Russian woman, apparently a relative of the great Tolstoy, who appeared in the novel of the revolutionary writer Ilya Ehrenburg, Men, Years, Life. She had gone to prison in Russia and then fled to Paris to study medicine. This was where she fell passionately in love with the Romanian Solomon Marbais (1874-1955), an affair ravaging everything in its path in the over-the-top Russian way.
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lovely Tatiana Rachewskaia, suicided at 23
Credit: Prestige'S
Constantin Brâncuşi (1876–1957) was the son of a poor Romanian peasant who began his career as an apprentice to a cabinet maker. Later he became an apprentice of the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin, greatly influenced by Rodin’s moving from naturalist representation to stylised, elegant forms.
Brancusi in turn became a mentor to Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, another recent immigrant to Paris. Modigliani had entered 7 paintings in Paris’ Salon d’Automne exhibition in 1907 and 5 works in the Salon des Indépendants in 1908, but few paid attention. Embittered, Modigliani threw himself instead into carving stone, again inspired by Brancusi, his friend and neighbour.
In 1908-9 the not-yet famous Brâncuşi had just finished a rough stone sculpture depicting two entwined, abstracted lovers in an embrace. This was The Kiss. Only 2 years after Brancusi made this sculpture, Rachewskaia committed love-tortured suicide in Paris in late Nov 1910, at 23. Sadly it was Solomon Marbais’ sister who found Tatiana hanged in her Boulevard de Port-Royal room.
Marbais, a friend of Constantin Brancusi’s, purchased the sculpture directly from the artist to decorate the top of Tatiana’s grave at Cimetière du Montparnasse. Marbais paid the very modest price of 200 francs.
After WWI, Marbais worked on typhoid vaccine research and nursed desperate cases of Spanish flu in Cochin Hospital. He got his medical decree from Paris Uni and became famous having designed a vaccine against one of the most devastating disease then, TB.
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Augustus John; Constantin Brancusi; Frank Owen Dobson, c1925National Portrait Gallery
In 1938 Peggy Guggenheim opened Guggenheim Jeune modern art gallery in London, and was delighted to display works by Wassily Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso & Jean Miro. Peggy was becoming one of the art world’s most significant patrons and promoters in London & Paris, so when she included Constantin Brancusi, his career rocked. Her patronage also allowed her to boast of having had 400+ lovers, including Brancusi and Marcel Duchamp.
Brancusi bequeathed his entire studio to the French state before his death in 1957, and was buried in Cimetière du Montparnasse. In the century since its creation, The Kiss has become one of this cemetery’s most popular attractions, drawing thousands of admirers.
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The Kiss sculpture, placed on top of Tatiana Rachewskaia's grave
by her lover, Solomon Marbais in 1910
Montparnasse Cemetery
In 2018, visitors discovered that the work had been hidden from public view in a mysterious box, leading to the authorities to reveal that it was subject to a legal claim. 6 people claimed they owned the rights to the Montparnasse Cemetery version of The Kiss, so dealer Guillaume Duhamel and the French auction house Millon recontacted Rachevskaïa’s descendants.
For years Titania’s Russian heirs had been seeking permission to claim The Kiss. A decision was made by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Paris in Dec 2020, siding with the heirs’ claim. But when the family went to the grave to claim the sculpture soon after, the City of Paris refused to allow them to take it to Russia. More court cases loomed.
The endless legal battle over a Brancusi sculpture, long a beloved fixture of Paris’ Montparnasse Cemetery, ended in 2021 in a win for the City of Paris. The French court deemed the marble sculpture, designated since 1992 a Historical Monument and integral component of Titania’s tombstone, barring its removal from the funeral grounds. But why was this sculpture still part of Brancusi’s estate, even though Marbais definitely bought it in 1910? And what will happen now?
Credit: Prestige'S
Constantin Brâncuşi (1876–1957) was the son of a poor Romanian peasant who began his career as an apprentice to a cabinet maker. Later he became an apprentice of the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin, greatly influenced by Rodin’s moving from naturalist representation to stylised, elegant forms.
Brancusi in turn became a mentor to Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, another recent immigrant to Paris. Modigliani had entered 7 paintings in Paris’ Salon d’Automne exhibition in 1907 and 5 works in the Salon des Indépendants in 1908, but few paid attention. Embittered, Modigliani threw himself instead into carving stone, again inspired by Brancusi, his friend and neighbour.
In 1908-9 the not-yet famous Brâncuşi had just finished a rough stone sculpture depicting two entwined, abstracted lovers in an embrace. This was The Kiss. Only 2 years after Brancusi made this sculpture, Rachewskaia committed love-tortured suicide in Paris in late Nov 1910, at 23. Sadly it was Solomon Marbais’ sister who found Tatiana hanged in her Boulevard de Port-Royal room.
Marbais, a friend of Constantin Brancusi’s, purchased the sculpture directly from the artist to decorate the top of Tatiana’s grave at Cimetière du Montparnasse. Marbais paid the very modest price of 200 francs.
After WWI, Marbais worked on typhoid vaccine research and nursed desperate cases of Spanish flu in Cochin Hospital. He got his medical decree from Paris Uni and became famous having designed a vaccine against one of the most devastating disease then, TB.
In 1938 Peggy Guggenheim opened Guggenheim Jeune modern art gallery in London, and was delighted to display works by Wassily Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso & Jean Miro. Peggy was becoming one of the art world’s most significant patrons and promoters in London & Paris, so when she included Constantin Brancusi, his career rocked. Her patronage also allowed her to boast of having had 400+ lovers, including Brancusi and Marcel Duchamp.
Brancusi bequeathed his entire studio to the French state before his death in 1957, and was buried in Cimetière du Montparnasse. In the century since its creation, The Kiss has become one of this cemetery’s most popular attractions, drawing thousands of admirers.
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In 2005 Parisian art dealer Guillaume Duhamel inquired about The Kiss, following a steep rise in Brancusi’s market value. A version of Brancusi’s sculpture Bird in Space 1922–3 sold at Christie’s in New York for $27 million in 2005, making it a very expensive sculpture! Dealers now looked for Brancusi’s multiple versions of The Kiss, including those in Bucharest’s National Museum of Art and in Philadelphia’s Museum of Art. The Montparnasse version was valued at $45 million, with six different people claiming ownership rights!!
In 2006 Duhamel and the French auction house Millon tracked downTitania Rachewskaia’s heirs in Ukraine, who filed an application with the French Ministry of Culture to export the sculpture to Russia. Suspicious that The Kiss would end up at auction, the City of Paris declined the export request and listed it as a cultural monument. The Russian heirs argued that the sculpture was created 2 years before Tatiana’s death, supporting the view that the artist could not have predicted her death and therefore it wasn’t created for her grave.
In 2006 Duhamel and the French auction house Millon tracked downTitania Rachewskaia’s heirs in Ukraine, who filed an application with the French Ministry of Culture to export the sculpture to Russia. Suspicious that The Kiss would end up at auction, the City of Paris declined the export request and listed it as a cultural monument. The Russian heirs argued that the sculpture was created 2 years before Tatiana’s death, supporting the view that the artist could not have predicted her death and therefore it wasn’t created for her grave.
by her lover, Solomon Marbais in 1910
Montparnasse Cemetery
For years Titania’s Russian heirs had been seeking permission to claim The Kiss. A decision was made by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Paris in Dec 2020, siding with the heirs’ claim. But when the family went to the grave to claim the sculpture soon after, the City of Paris refused to allow them to take it to Russia. More court cases loomed.
The endless legal battle over a Brancusi sculpture, long a beloved fixture of Paris’ Montparnasse Cemetery, ended in 2021 in a win for the City of Paris. The French court deemed the marble sculpture, designated since 1992 a Historical Monument and integral component of Titania’s tombstone, barring its removal from the funeral grounds. But why was this sculpture still part of Brancusi’s estate, even though Marbais definitely bought it in 1910? And what will happen now?