Orpheus and Eurydice

1885

Camille Claudel: assistant and lover

From 1885 Claudel worked as an assistant in Rodin's studio and posed for him, and soon they became lovers. The affair lasted nine years, and Rodin did not break with Rose Beuret, who knew her role as “the other woman”.

1886

Commission for the Victor Hugo monument for the Panthéon

Rodin showed Hugo as a mighty nude titan among three muses; the figure was judged unsuitable for the Panthéon and the project was rejected. In 1890 he removed the muses, and in 1909 the monument was set up in the garden of the Palais-Royal.

1889

Rodin and Monet at the Georges Petit gallery

“The Burghers of Calais” was the main event of a joint exhibition of Rodin and Claude Monet: thirty-six sculptures by Rodin and seventy paintings by Monet.

1891

Commission for the Balzac monument

The Société des Gens de Lettres, largely through the personal efforts of its president, Émile Zola, commissioned a monument to Balzac to be delivered in two years. Rodin pictured a massive standing figure with a large head and a body hidden in drapery, but he missed the deadline.

1893

Chicago: nudes behind a drape

Through the curator Sarah Hallowell, Rodin sent “Cupid and Psyche”, “Sphinx” and “Andromeda” to the Chicago World's Fair; the nudes caused such controversy that they were hidden behind a drape, with special permission needed to see them. Even so, the financier Charles Yerkes bought two large marbles and was probably the first American to own a Rodin.

1895

Buys the Villa des Brillants at Meudon

Rodin bought the Villa des Brillants estate near Paris and moved his studio there, but there was not enough room and two years later it went back to Paris. His income let him collect: Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculpture, Persian miniatures and paintings by his contemporaries, including Van Gogh's “Portrait of Père Tanguy”.