Paris Cemetery

A famous Constantin Brancusi sculpture of a couple embracing, “Le Baiser” (“The Kiss,” 1909), has crowned Tatiana Rachewskaïa’s tomb for more than a century. Rachewskaïa, a young Russian student, committed love-tortured suicide in 1910; her lover, a Romanian doctor named Solomon Marbais, was a friend of Brancusi’s and purchased the sculpture directly from the artist to place on Rachewskaïa’s grave. It has been on view just inside the cemetery’s Rue Émile-Richard entrance since the very end of 1910 or early 1911. But, for at least six months now, the sculpture has been covered up and mysteriously concealed from public view.Partial view of Atelier Brancusi at the Centre Pompidou (photo by Georges Meguerditchian, courtesy MNAM-CCIDist, RMN-GP)“The Kiss” has long been an easily accessible and attractive public art jewel, and one of the main attractions to the Cimetière du Montparnasse. The sculpture compliments the famous reconstitution of Brancusi’s studio that sits on the public piazza alongside the Centre Pompidou. Together, they have made Paris the Brancusi destination par excellence for art-inclined visitors; the artist, who is also buried in Cimetière du Montparnasse, bequeathed his entire studio to the French state at his death in 1957. The mystery is why this designated historical monument (since 1992) — which appears to belong to the city of Paris and has long been protected by video surveillance — has been unavailable to the public for six months now? And, more urgently, what lies ahead for it?This isn’t the first time questions have arisen about the Brancusi’s future. Seven years ago, concern for “The Kiss” was sounded by Didier Rykner, who reported in La Tribune de l’Art that it had been the subject of an application for an export certificate initiated, allegedly, by a descendant of the deceased, a member of the Rachewskaïa family. Ironically, in 1910 the Rachewskaïa family did not appreciate this eccentric funerary monument and proposed it be chang... (Hyperallergic)