Balzac by Rodin in the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

In the late 1880's Rodin continued to receive commissions for public monuments including a monument to painter Claude Lorrain and another monument to French novelist Victor Hugo. In 1891 Rodin received a commission by the Société des Gens de Lettres (the Society of Men of Letters) to create a monument to their founder, French writer Honoré de Balzac. Since Balzac had been dead for forty years, Rodin faced the challenge of having to render his likeness from photographs. He researched the writer extensively, going so far as to order a suit from Balzac's tailor to visualize his size and girth.

Rodin worked on the Monument to Balzac for seven years. He completed at least fifty studies, some based on Balzac's actual appearance and others more subjective and abstract. Most of the studies were of Balzac's head, as Rodin felt it more important to emphasize the heads of people of such high intellect. He finished the monument in 1898 and presented the final nine-foot plaster model to the public. It was met with outrage, disbelief, and ridicule, and as a result the literary society refused to accept it. Deeply hurt by the criticism, Rodin removed the sculpture to his studio at Meudon, outside of Paris, and refused to allow it to be cast during his lifetime.

Text from: www.cantorfoundation.org/Rodin/rbiom.html