The Age of Bronze

This article is about a sculpture by Rodin. For other uses, see Age of Bronze (disambiguation).

The Age of Bronze
French: L'âge d'airain
The Age of Bronze, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2006).
Artist	Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)
Year	1877 (first exhibited)
Type	Statue
Medium	Bronze
Dimensions	Life size

The Age of Bronze (French: L'âge d'airain) is a bronze statue by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). The figure is of a life-size nude male, 72 in. (182.9 cm) high. Rodin continued to produce casts of the statue for several decades after it was modelled in 1876.

Rodin had a Belgian soldier pose for the statue, keeping photographs which survive (in the Rodin Museum). The pose partly derives from Michelangelo's Dying Slave in the Louvre Museum, which has the elbow raised above the head.

3D model, click to interact.

History

When the statue was first exhibited at the 1877 Salon in Paris, France, Rodin was falsely accused of having made the statue by casting a living model, a charge that was vigorously denied. This charge benefited Rodin, though, because people were so eager to see this for themselves.

Casts

Casts of the statue can be found in many museums, including:

Institution	City	Country
Albright–Knox Art Gallery	Buffalo, New York	United States
Alte Nationalgalerie	Berlin	Germany
Museum Folkwang	Essen	Germany
Schlossmuseum	Weimar	Germany
Chiado Museum	Lisbon	Portugal
Cleveland Museum of Art	Cleveland, Ohio	United States
Columbus Museum of Art	Columbus, Ohio	United States
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek	Copenhagen	Denmark
Nationalmuseum	Stockholm	Sweden
Honolulu Museum of Art	Honolulu, Hawaii	United States
Hugh Lane Gallery	Dublin	Ireland
Instituto Ricardo Brennand	Recife	Brazil
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University	Stanford, California	United States
Kunstmuseum	The Hague	Netherlands
Leeds Art Gallery	Leeds	England
Lycée Rodin, cour d'honneur	Paris	France
Maryhill Museum of Art	Maryhill, Washington	United States
Metropolitan Museum of Art	New York City, New York	United States
Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum	Antwerp	Belgium
Minneapolis Institute of Arts	Minneapolis, Minnesota	United States
Musée d'Orsay	Paris	France
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon	Lyon	France
Musée Rodin	Paris	France
Museo Soumaya	Mexico City	Mexico
Museum of Fine Arts	Budapest	Hungary
Nasher Sculpture Center	Dallas, Texas	United States
National Gallery of Art	Washington, D.C.	United States
National Gallery of Canada	Ottawa, Ontario	Canada
National Museum of Western Art	Tokyo	Japan
New Orleans Museum of Art	New Orleans, Louisiana	United States
Princeton University Art Museum	Princeton, New Jersey	United States
Rodin Museum	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	United States
Tokyo University of the Arts, The University Art Museum	Tokyo	Japan
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum	Tokyo	Japan
Victoria and Albert Museum	London	England
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya	Barcelona	Spain
Burrell Collection	Glasgow	Scotland
Legion of Honor	San Francisco	United States
Queensland Art Gallery	Brisbane	Australia
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna	Rome	Italy
Chrysler Museum of Art	Norfolk, Virginia	United States

Gallery

• 
  Plaster from 1877
• 
  Plaster, detail
• 
  Bronze cast
• 
  Bronze cast from 1876/1877 in Lyon
• 
  Detail of the bronze cast in the National Gallery of Canada, cast in 1901

See also

• List of sculptures by Auguste Rodin
• 1877 in art

Bibliography

• Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette; Judrin, Claude; Vassalo, I. (1997). Vers l'âge d'airain, Rodin en Belgique: Exposition. Paris: Musée Rodin editions. ISBN 978-2-901428-60-2.

External links

• The Age of Bronze, Analysis and Critical Reception
• The Age of Bronze at the Musée Rodin
• The Age of Bronze at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Media related to The Bronze Age by Auguste Rodin at Wikimedia Commons