Rodin's Monument to Victor Hugo

The death of the great poet-patriot Victor Hugo (1802-1885) stimulated the French government to transform the Pantheon in Paris into a republican hall of fame. It was to include a monument to Victor Hugo, who had carried the spirit of the French Revolution into the nineteenth century. The artist chosen was the master sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), who valued the commision above all others that he received.

The story of the monument's development, which is compellingly told in this thoroughly researched catalogue, is a long and turbulent one, marked by political disagreement, the complex history of the Pantheon, and the drama of Rodin's relationships with his fellow artists and others. The original plaster sketch for the monument was rejected in 1890 by a committee selected to oversee the project, although Rodin was encouraged by the head of the commission to continue working on it. In 1897 Rodin exhibited a rough three-figure plaster group at the Salon, depicting Hugo's powerful figure seated in contemplation with his inspirational Meditation and his Tragic Muse on either side. However, despite the enthusiastic reaction from the public and critics to the work, the government lost interest, and the commission remained unfulfilled.

It was not until 1964 that the first bronze cast of Rodin's Monument to Victor Hugo was made, a majestic work based on the plaster that originated in 1897 and intended for a permanent setting at a busy street intersection in Paris. The same plaster group also served as the basis for the second bronze cast, commissioned in 1995 by the late B. Gerald Cantor, the pre-eminent collector and proponent of Rodin in the United States in the second half of thetwentieth century. This major traveling exhibition and accompanying catalogue, both prepared by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation as part of their ongoing mission to bring the work of Rodin to a broader public, present