Description: Although most today would consider Auguste Rodin the father of modern sculpture, it was not his intention to revolutionize the medium. He received a traditional artistic education and took a craftsman-like approach to creating his sculptures, a result of his working for commercial sculptors, including Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, for whom he created carvings for roof, stairway, and door embellishments.
During these formative years, Rodin created a series of female busts inspired by eighteenth-century prototypes. One of these early examples of Rodin’s extraordinary talent, Young Girl with Flowers in Her Hair reveals the young artist’s potential through his advanced ability to convey various textures through a passionate attention to detail. These different textures heighten the emotion of this bust, which displays the innocence and delicacy, as well as the immediacy, of youthful femininity. Indeed, the intense insight achieved in Young Girl with Flowers in Her Hair foreshadows the psychological expression achieved in Rodin’s future artistic masterworks.
Provenance: Gift from the B. Gerald Cantor Art Foundation