Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 9: Burghers of Calais [Musée Rodin Cast]

Preferred Title: 
Burghers of Calais [Musée Rodin Cast]
Alternate Title: 
Les Bourgeois de Calais
Image View: 
Detail, figure of Pierre de Wissant
Creator: 
Auguste Rodin (French sculptor, 1840-1917)
Location: 
repository: Musée Rodin (Paris, Île-de-France, France)
Location Note: 
Hôtel Biron; 79 rue de Varenne
GPS: 
+48.8555281+2.315902
Date: 
cast 1926 (other); designed 1884-1895 (creation)
Cultural Context: 
French
Style Period: 
Nineteenth century
Work Type 1: 
sculpture (visual work)
Work Type 2: 
monument
Classification: 
sculpture
Material: 
bronze
Technique: 
casting (process); modeling (forming)
Measurements: 
2 m (height)
Description: 
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 Saint-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. 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 this monument high on a pedestal, silhouetted against the Houses of Parliament). There are eight additional casts and many bronzes of the individual burghers. This group is considered one of the 12 "original" casts (the limited edition set forth in the French Intellectual Property Code); cast in 1926 and given to the museum in 1955. (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/)
Collection: 
Archivision Addition Module Nine
Identifier: 
7A1-RA-BC_1-A17
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.