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Jean Paul Laurens
(1881)
Medium
bronze
Measurements
57.4 × 38.4 × 32.8 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1906
Gallery location
19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Jean Paul Laurens was two years older than Rodin and a prominent painter of historical subjects during France’s Third Republic. Rodin’s portrait of his painter friend makes Laurens out to be a gnarled and grizzled figure, like one of the characters from Laurens’s depictions of the Inquisition. Rodin later recalled that: ‘I had great pleasure in making his bust. He reproached me amicably for having represented him with his mouth open. I told him that because of the shape of his skull, he was very probably descended from the ancient Visigoths of Spain and that this type was characterised by the protrusion of the lower jaw’.
Artwork Details
Inscription
cast in right side in shoulder c.: A.Rodin
cast in relief inside front: A. Rodin
Accession Number
247-2
Department
International Sculpture
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited