The Museum's website (
visit link) provides the information about this sculpture:
"Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Artist: Auguste Rodin (French, Paris 1840–1917 Meudon)
Founder: Cast by Alexis Rudier (French)
Date: modeled probably 1890, cast probably ca. 1910
Culture: French
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: H. 21 in. (53.3 cm.); W. 20 in. (50.8 cm.); D. 12-1/2 in. (31.8 cm.)
Classification: Sculpture-Bronze
Credit Line: Gift of Thomas F. Ryan, 1910
Accession Number: 11.173.8
Rodin neither selected his male and female sitters in the same way, nor approached them in the same way artistically. For the most part, he chose male subjects for their achievement and character, his female sitters for their beauty or sensuality. Of the many painters who made Paris the great center of artistic creativity that it was in the second half of the nineteenth century, the two whom Rodin most respected were Eugène Carrière and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
In the matter of portraiture, Puvis proved no less difficult than some of Rodin's other friends. The painter was, in fact, very upset with the first, bare-chested bust that Rodin modeled in 1880, at the commission of the French Ministry of Fine Arts, and he was less than happy with the clothed version. Years later Rodin would say "Puvis de Chavannes did not like my bust of him…He thought that I had caricatured him. And yet I am certain that I have expressed in my sculpture all the enthusiasm and veneration that I felt for him.'"
and Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter, who became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists. Though his reputation has since declined, he was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic. Émile Zola described his work as 'an art made of reason, passion, and will.'
Life
He was born Pierre-Cécile Puvis in a suburb of Lyon, France, the son of a mining engineer, descendant of an old noble family of Burgundy, and later added the ancestral 'de Chavannes' to his name. Throughout his life however he spurned his Lyon origins, preferring to identify himself with the 'strong' blood of the Burgundians, from where his father originated. Pierre Puvis was educated at the Amiens College and at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris, and was intended to follow his father's profession when a serious illness interrupted his studies . He was compelled to convalesce at Mâcon with his brother and sister-in-law in 1844 and 1845. A journey to Italy opened his mind to fresh ideas, and on his return to Paris in 1846 he announced his intention to become a painter,. He went to study first under Eugène Delacroix (very briefly, as Delacroix closed his studio shortly afterwards due to ill health), Henri Scheffer, and then under Thomas Couture. His training was not classical as he found that he preferred to work alone. He took a large studio near the Gare de Lyon and attended anatomy classes at the Académie des Beaux Arts. It was not until a number of years later, when the government of France acquired one of his works, that he gained wide recognition.
He made his Salon debut in 1850 with Dead Christ, Negro Boy, The Reading Lesson, and Portrait of a Man.
In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would become one of the leading artists of the day as well as the mother, teacher, and mentor of Maurice Utrillo."