''Eustache de Saint Pierre'' is a sculpture by

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 ...

, now in the

Museo Soumaya The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...

in Mexico City. It was conceived between 1885 and 1886 as part of his ''

The Burghers of Calais ''The Burghers of Calais'' (french: Les Bourgeois de Calais) is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in twelve original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Cha ...

'' group. The other figures in the group (

Jean de Fiennes ''Jean de Fiennes'' is a sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin, first produced between 1885 and 1886. A bronze cast of it is now in the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City. Burghers of Calais It is an individual nude modello for his group ''The ...

Pierre de Wiessant ''Pierre de Wissant'' is a bronze sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, part of his sculptural group ''The Burghers of Calais''. This sculpture represents one of the six burghers who, according to Jean Froissart Froissart, Jean, ''Chronicles ...

, Jacques de Wiessant, Jean d´Aire and

Andrieu d'Andres Andrieu is a name. People with the name include: Given name * Andrieu Contredit d'Arras ( 1200 – 1248), French poet-composer Surname * Bernard Andrieu (born 1959), French philosopher and historian * Bertrand Andrieu (1761–1822), French engrav ...

) were also cast as individual figures.

Design process

In Rodin's first

maquette A ''maquette'' (French word for scale model, sometimes referred to by the Italian names ''plastico'' or ''modello'') is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. An equivalent term is ''bozzetto'', from the Italian word for "sketc ...

for the project, the figure of

Eustache de Saint Pierre Eustache de Saint Pierre, by Jean-Simon Berthélemy Eustache de Saint Pierre is the best-known figure of the group of six known as The Burghers of Calais, the first to volunteer and surrender, wearing "a shirt and a rope around his neck" to the ...

(the oldest of the burghers) was in a dominant position within the group, carrying the town's keys. The second maquette still showed the whole group and still had Saint Pierre in the front row, but his pose had been changed to showing his arms lowered and his body leaning forward. However, the committee supervising the commission rejected this pose, since it did not wish Saint Pierre to be shown as dejected. Rodin also produced nude models of the individual figures - this work is one of them. He also made head and hand studies. For the figure of Saint Pierre, the head model was the painter

Jean-Charles Cazin Jean-Charles Cazin (25 May 1840 – 17 March 1901) was a French landscapist, museum curator and ceramicist. Biography The son of a well-known doctor, FJ Cazin (1788–1864), he was born at Samer, Pas-de-Calais. After studying in France, ...

, who came from the

Pas de Calais The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...

- 19th century pseudo-sciences such as

physiognomy Physiognomy (from the Greek , , meaning "nature", and , meaning "judge" or "interpreter") is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general ...

held that each region had a specific set of facial features. Although clothed in a robe and with a noose round his neck, the figure of Saint Pierre in the finished group is otherwise almost identical to the model.

References

External links

* {{Auguste Rodin Sculptures by Auguste Rodin Sculptures of the Museo Soumaya 1886 sculptures

Design process

See also

References

External links