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Victor Hugo
ca. 1917
Rodin had first portrayed the novelist, poet, and critic Victor Hugo
decades earlier, as evidenced by two other bronze casts in the museum's collection. Following the writer’s death in 1889, the French
government commissioned Rodin to create two different public
monuments, neither ultimately realized as intended. Rodin
developed this dramatic bust years later, just before his own death.
It captures Hugo’s likeness within a grand unfinished marble
block, in the manner of Michelangelo. While the sixteenth-century master had left his works incomplete due to exigencies of
time, Rodin intentionally manufactured a roughed-out aesthetic,
paying homage to two artistic role models at once.
- Artist
- Auguste Rodin
- Title
- Victor Hugo
- Date
- ca. 1917
- Place of Creation
- France
- Object Type
- Sculpture
- Medium
- Marble
- Dimensions
- 41 1/2 x 41 7/8 x 27 1/2 in. (105.4 x 106.4 x 69.9 cm)
- Credit Line
- Anonymous Gift
- Accession Number
- 1962.28