A bronze by French sculptor Camille Claudel thought to evoke her separation with fellow artist and lover Auguste Rodin was auctioned off in France Sunday for more than $3 million.
Claudel, whose life and tortured love affair with Rodin has inspired several films, destroyed much of her work before her brother confined her to a psychiatric hospital in 1913.
The artist sculpted "The Mature Age" after she broke off with Rodin, who was two decades older, seeking to create a name for herself in her own right after years as his assistant.
The sculpture, which exists in several copies, depicts an elderly woman dragging an ageing man away, while a young woman on her knees implores him.
Art historians have seen in "The Implorer" a representation of Claudel devastated as Rodin is torn away from her.
Auctioneer Matthieu Semont told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that he discovered the latest copy by chance in September, by lifting up a dust sheet in a flat near the Eiffel Tower that had been abandoned for around 15 years. He did not say to whom it belonged.
Semont said that, from his research into Claudel's life, it seemed Rodin had "never stopped loving her and cried when he discovered 'The Implorer' at the foundry."
The bronze he found was sold for 3.1 million euros ($ 3.2 million) at an auction house in the city of Orleans south of Paris, an AFP reporter there said. It had been estimated at 1.5 to 2 million euros.
Two other versions of "The Mature Age" are on display at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the Camille Claudel Museum outside the capital.
A trove of sculptures by Claudel broke records at auction in Paris in 2017, going for $4.1 million – three times their estimate.
The star of the auction, a bronze called "The Abandonment," went for nearly $1.4 million.
With comparatively few of her works surviving, the first version of her sweeping bronze "The Waltz" sold for $8 million in 2013.
Claudel became a feminist icon as her reputation revived, particularly after an eponymous French biopic with Isabelle Adjani playing her opposite Gerard Depardieu's Rodin, was nominated for two Oscars in 1989.
Juliette Binoche played her in a 2013 film about her abandonment in the asylum.
Despite pleas by doctors and friends that she was sane and did not need to be in hospital, Claudel remained confined to the asylum on her family's orders until her death aged 78 in 1943.
Feminist critics have never forgiven Rodin for his treatment of Claudel, who contributed to some of his most acclaimed works and who many argue was his equal artistically.
