BalzacPenultimate

Head of Balzac, Penultimate Study

Modeled 1897, cast number and date of cast unknown, Alexis Rudier Foundry
Bronze
6 ¼ x 6 x 7 inches
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection

“I tried in the Balzac … to find an art that is not photography in sculpture. My principle is to imitate not only form but life. I look for that life in nature, but in amplifying it, exaggerating the holes and the bumps so as to give them more light; then I look for a synthesis of the whole.”

From the publication Le Journal, Paris, May 12, 1898. (As quoted in The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin by John Tancock, 1976.)