''Cybele'' is a sculpture by French artist

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

. It is one of the first of Rodin's partial figures known as "fragments" to be displayed as sculpture in its own right, rather than an incomplete study.

History

Inspired by fragments of Greek art and incomplete work by

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

, Rodin modeled a small study of a headless, seated woman. Following a scandal in 1877 when Rodin was wrongly accused of casting ''

The Age of Bronze ''The Age of Bronze'' (french: L'Âge d'airain) is a bronze statue by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). The figure is of a life-size nude male, 72 in. (182.9 cm) high. Rodin continued to produce casts of the statue for ...

'' from life, the artist usually preferred to make sculptures that were smaller than life. Rodin's model was one of his favorites, Anna Abruzzesi, one of a pair of sisters he often used. Art critic Georges Grappe dated the sculpture to 1889 and stated without providing a source that it was a study for ''

The Gates of Hell ''The Gates of Hell'' (french: La Porte de l'Enfer) is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the ''Inferno'', the first section of Dante Alighieri's ''Divine Comedy''. It stands at 6 ...

''. In 1904, Rodin's assistant Henri Lebossé created an enlarged plaster version of the work using a machine invented by

Achille Collas Achille Collas (1795–1859) was a French engineer, inventor, writer and engraver who developed a way of mechanically creating engravings after medallions and other reliefs, and a machine to copy sculptures at a smaller scale, the so-called ...

. This monumental work was displayed as ''A Figure'' at the 1905 Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At that time, the sculpture was informally known by Rodin's friends and workers as ''Abruzzesi Seated'' after the woman who served as the model. It wasn't until 1914 that the work acquired its current name, ''

Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya'' "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian ''Kuvava''; el, Κυβέλη ''Kybele'', ''Kybebe'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forer ...

'', after the fertile

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...

mother goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...

. A bronze cast of the enlarged version was exhibited as ''Cybele'' at an exhibition at

Grosvenor House Grosvenor House was one of the largest townhouses in London, home of the Grosvenor family (better known as the Dukes of Westminster) for more than a century. Their original London residence was on Millbank, but after the family had developed ...

in London that year. The ample figure of the sculpture may have suggested the title to Rodin.

Copies

The plaster version displayed at the 1905 Salon is now at the

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux is the fine arts museum of the city of Bordeaux, France. The museum is housed in a dependency of the Palais Rohan in central Bordeaux. Its collections include paintings, sculptures and drawings from the 15t ...

. Many bronze casts have been made that are displayed at locations including: *

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London (This 1914 cast is the only cast made during Rodin's life.) *

Musée Rodin The Musée Rodin ( en, Rodin Museum) in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as ...

, Paris (1981 cast) *

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Brooklyn, New York (1981 cast) * Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, Stanford, California (1981 cast) *

Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden is a sculpture garden located at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) in Houston, Texas, United States. Designed by artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi, the garden consists of 25 works o ...

, Houston, Texas (1982 cast) *

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

, Raleigh, North Carolina, (1987 cast)

Notes

References

External links

* {{Public art in Houston 1890 sculptures Bronze sculptures in California Bronze sculptures in Paris Bronze sculptures in Brooklyn Bronze sculptures in North Carolina Sculptures in the North Carolina Museum of Art Bronze sculptures in Texas Bronze sculptures in the United Kingdom Collection of the Brooklyn Museum Sculptures in the Victoria and Albert Museum Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden Plaster sculptures Sculptures by Auguste Rodin Sculptures of goddesses Sculptures of classical mythology Sculptures of women in California Sculptures of women in Paris Sculptures of women in New York City Sculptures of women in North Carolina Sculptures of women in Texas Sculptures of women in London Stanford University Statues in California Statues in France Statues in Houston Statues in London Statues in New York City Statues in North Carolina

History

Copies

See also

Notes

References

External links