Acrylic on canvas

Signature on the back

30 x 30 x 1.6 cm.

12 x 12 x 0.6 inch.

Unique

 

The Famous French Collection

The École des Beaux-Arts rejected him three times.

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Auguste Rodin kept going anyway, modeling in clay, working by hand, refusing to idealize the human body the way the academics demanded. When he exhibited The Age of Bronze in 1877, the figure was so anatomically precise that critics accused him of cheating: they said he must have cast it directly from a live model. He hadn't. He'd done it entirely by hand.

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By 60, he was the most celebrated sculptor in the world. He never carved marble himself — he conceived the work in clay and plaster, and left the cutting to assistants. The ideas were entirely his. So was the fingerprint, literally: traces of his touch remain visible on the surface of his sculptures.