Exhibitions: Rodin: The Cantor Gift to the Brooklyn Museum

In his first maquette for the sculpture commissioned by the city of Calais in 1884, Rodin proposed a conventional monument, with his figures united as a group on a tall pedestal. By the following year, however, the six figures were placed on a low rectangular plinth, at the same level as the viewer. As Rodin later wrote: "I wanted to have my statues placed in front of the Calais city hall on the very paving of the square like a living rosary of suffering and sacrifice." The overwhelming grief, suffering, and humility captured in the figure of Andrieu d'Andres accentuate the feelings of nobility and sacrifice conveyed by the assembled group.