Rodin Museum - Collections Object : Apotheosis of Victor Hugo

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Rodin Museum

Apotheosis of Victor Hugo

Made in France, Europe

Modeled 1890-91; cast 1926

Auguste Rodin, French, 1840 - 1917. Cast by the founder Alexis Rudier, Paris, 1874 - 1952.

Bronze
44 x 20 1/4 x 24 inches (111.8 x 51.4 x 61 cm)

* Rodin Museum, Northeast Gallery

F1929-7-44

Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929

Label

In 1889 Rodin was commissioned to produce a monument to honor the writer Victor Hugo (French, 1802–1885) for the Panthéon in Paris. This bronze represents the artist’s second attempt, which portrays the standing poet crowned by a muse while allegorical figures encircle him below. The project was eventually abandoned but led to a separate work, Rodin’s colossal Monument to Victor Hugo (a version of which is in the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art).

More information on this object can be found in the following Theme:

Bronze Casting
Rodin worked in traditional sculptural materials such as clay, wax, plaster, bronze, and marble. Although he did not attend the renowned École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris, he learned the craft of sculpture through experience and years of employment in the studios of other artists. As he explained, "In addition to sculpture and design, I myself have worked at all sorts of things. I've cut down marbles, and pointed them; I've done etching, and lithography, bronze founding and patina; I've worked in stone, made ornaments, pottery, jewelry—perhaps even too long; but it all has served. It's the material itself that interested me. In short, I began as an artisan, to become an artist. That's the good, the only, method." Once he became an established artist, Rodin relied on a large studio of assistants to help him create large-scale works. Their presence allowed him to delegate the production aspects of his sculptures so that he could focus on conceiving and executing new pieces.
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Label

Bronze Casting