The Age of Bronze

Modeled in Brussels in 1875 after the young soldier Auguste Neyt following Rodins trip to Italy, the plaster was first exhibited in January 1877 at the Cercle Artistique in Brussels, as 'Vencu ou Soldat blessé', and was shown at the Salon de Mai in Paris under the title 'L'age d'airain' as an original human being in the sense of Rousseau, barely awakening to consciousness. The fact that the accusation that the figure was a mere cast of the model could be raised, illustrates how revolutionary the figure must have appeared in its immediate liveliness in comparison to the academic tradition.