Mask of a Weeping Woman

Mask of a Weeping Woman is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin, initially produced as a pair with Weeping Woman for the first version of his The Gates of Hell in 1885. The two pieces were intended to appear on the centre of each panel. They were later moved by Rodin himself, who instead placed Mask on the lower part of the left panel.[1]

Mask of a Weeping Woman
A bronze version of the work at the Museo Soumaya
ArtistAuguste Rodin
Year1885

In his 1909 retrospective catalogue of his own works, Rodin described this pair of works as a "face violently creased with sadness and torn by bitter tears and dishevelled hair".[2] He merged her hair with the uneven surface representing her neck, which may suggest that the work was not intended to depict a figure from history of Ovid's Metamorphoses as Truman Bartlett supposed.[3] It is different from Rodin's traditional style at that time and differs from his Mask of Pain, anticipating instead his Hanako series of 1907.

Rodin exhibited a new version of the work at Georges Petit's gallery, created for Edmond Lachenal in memory of a woman.

References
  1. "Mask of a Girl Crying". www.rodinmuseum.com.
  2. (in French) Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette (2001). Rodin. Les Bourgeois de Calais. París: éditions du musée Rodin. ISBN 978-2901428701.
  3. Albert, Elsen; Fraankel Jamison, Rosalyn; Barryte, Bernard; Wing, Frank (2003). Rodin's Art : The Rodin Collection of Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center of Visual Arts at Stanford University: The Rodin Collection of Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center of Visual Arts at Stanford University. Oxford University Press. p. 234. ISBN 9780198030614.
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