Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 9: Burghers of Calais
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Preferred Title:
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Burghers of Calais
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Alternate Title:
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Les Bourgeois de Calais
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Image View:
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Jean d?Aire, overall frontal view showing torso and head
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Creator:
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Auguste Rodin (French sculptor, 1840-1917)
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Location:
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repository: Stanford University (Palo Alto, California, United States)
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Location Note:
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Memorial Court at entrance to Main Quad and Stanford Memorial Church
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GPS:
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+37.427993-122.169963
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Date:
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1884-1895 (creation)
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Cultural Context:
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French
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Style Period:
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Nineteenth century; Romantic
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Work Type 1:
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sculpture (visual work)
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Classification:
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sculpture
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Material:
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bronze
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Technique:
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casting (process)
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Measurements:
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2 m (height)
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Subjects:
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historical; human figure; military or war; Hundred Years War
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Description:
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In late 1884 Rodin secured the civic commission for a monument to the Burghers of Calais who in 1347 had offered their lives to the English in return for ending their siege. Although commissioned to depict only the leading burgher, Eustache de St Pierre, Rodin decided to show all six, realizing each individually, first nude and then draped, in progressively larger stages, until the final scale of 2 m in height. Grouped one behind another in a ring, these gaunt figures express indecision as much as self-sacrifice. After delays caused by disapproval of the composition and financial problems within the city government, the final work was unveiled in Calais, in front of the Hôtel de Ville, in June 1895. Before 1917 three more casts were made, one of which was purchased in 1911 by the National Art Collections Fund for the Victoria Tower Gardens, London (Rodin envisaged the monument high on a pedestal, silhouetted against the Houses of Parliament). There are seven additional casts and many bronzes of the individual
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Collection:
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Archivision Addition Module Five
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Identifier:
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6A1-RA-BC-B1
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Rights:
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© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.
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