The Mature Age

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L'Âge mûr (The Mature Age) by Camille Claudel, 1900
Musée d'Orsay
Rue de la Légion d'Honneur
Quartier Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, 7th arrondissement
Paris, July 2002

“The Mature Age (French: L'Âge mûr), also named Destiny, The Path of Life or Fatality (1894–1900) is a sculpture by French artist Camille Claudel. The work was commissioned by the French government in 1895, but the commission was cancelled in 1899 before a bronze was cast. A plaster version of the sculpture was exhibited in 1899, and then cast in bronze privately in 1902. A second private bronze casting was made in 1913, and it is thought that the plaster version was destroyed at that time. The two bronzes are exhibited in Paris, the first at the Musée d'Orsay and the second at the Musée Rodin. Auguste Rodin had taken Camille Claudel on as a student in 1884, and she became his associate and lover. He eventually refused to marry her, reluctant to end his long-term relationship with Rose Beuret, mother of his son and later his wife. This love triangle, and an abortion, caused a separation between Claudel and Rodin in 1892, but they remained on reasonable terms until 1898. Rodin tried to help Claudel through the agency of another person, and obtained an official commission for her from the Inspector of Fine Arts Armand Silvestre, in 1895, her first commission from the French state. The evolution of the work can be judged from official reports made by Inspector Armand Dayot. The final rupture between Claudel and Rodin came in 1898, when she moved away and opened her own studio. The commission was cancelled in unusual circumstances in June 1899 by the Fine Arts Director, Henry Roujon.” (The Mature Age, Wikipedia)