Refusing to Hide Old Age: She Who Was the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife

She Who Was the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife draws its inspiration from a poem by François Villon. In it, an aging woman looks back on her youth, mourning the beauty she's lost. Rodin rendered that same aging woman with unflinching honesty, her skin wrinkled and sagging with age, holding nothing back.

When this piece was first shown in 1887, it shocked many viewers. But the message Rodin wanted to convey through it was clear enough: that natural, honest aging is more beautiful than any false or artificial beauty.