Miart Gallery is pleased to present an exclusive collection of posthumous August Rodin (1840-1917) bronze sculptures. These bronzes are casts from original foundry plasters and part of a limited edition, each numbered. Was Cast by the Masters Limited Edition, Italy, using the lost wax process from a foundry plaster identical to the original plaster.

The Age of Bronze is Rodin’s first masterpiece. Exhibited at the Salon in 1877 when he was thirty-six, the work established Rodin as an independent artist. It remained a touchstone throughout his career. He created a bust and versions in two other sizes and until 1905 issued casts, in both bronze and plaster, only by special order. Rodin began work on The Age of Bronze with a scrupulous rendering after a model and then refined the image following examples of antique and Renaissance sculpture. Comparing photographs of the model (the Belgian soldier Auguste Neyt) with the sculpture itself reveals the perfection and truth to the nature of Rodin’s modeling. The comparison equally demonstrates that the artist subjected nature to a myriad of idealisations. For example, Rodin made the legs and lower torso of the figure slimmer than those of the model, and he also made the head somewhat smaller. Such details, which recall Hellenistic sculptures Rodin had seen in the Louvre and in Italy, confirm his remark that he found inspiration for his figure in a Greek Apollo.