During the early twentieth century, as Rodin’s international
reputation grew, he received requests for portraits of wealthy
sitters. This allegorical portrait of the British socialite Eve
Fairfax, with her braided coiffure transforming into ears of
wheat, emerges dreamlike from the block of marble. It was
commissioned by a man who hoped to marry her but completed by Rodin for his own pleasure. Fairfax would later
write, “I think I appealed to [Rodin] because, unlike most
other women at the time, I was not prepared to jump into bed
with him . . . . The fact that I treated him rather indifferently
made me different from all others.”