A Body with No Head: How Rodin Assembled His Sculptures

The sculpture in front of you is a study Rodin made while working toward Pierre de Wissant, one of the figures in The Burghers of Calais. To capture a sense of life in the piece, Rodin worked by first sculpting the nude body and only afterward adding the clothing — which is why what you see here is just the body, with no clothes at all.

Look closely and you'll notice it's also missing a head and hands, which has to do with Rodin's particular method. He liked to sculpt each part of a figure separately and assemble them afterward. Having finished the body first, he made several versions of the head and hands and tried fitting them together one by one until he found the combination that worked best. The finished version of Pierre de Wissant that resulted can be seen in the actual Burghers of Calais group.