Cast from the Tailor's Own Robe: The Secret Behind the Balzac Sculpture

In 1891, Rodin was commissioned by the French Society of Men of Letters to create a sculpture of Balzac. Rodin, who admired Balzac deeply, gladly accepted, and spent the following years immersed in research for the piece.

What you see here is one of the materials that came out of that research. Rodin's dedication to this sculpture went well beyond what you'd expect — he even researched, in minute detail, exactly what clothes Balzac wore. Balzac was famously fond of writing in a dressing gown, and to reproduce it accurately, Rodin tracked down the actual gown supplied by Balzac's own tailor.

What's displayed here is a hardened cast of that very gown — and not simply a cast of the fabric alone, but one made by having a man with a build similar to Balzac's actually wear the gown before it was cast. It was this kind of obsessive attention to detail that made possible one of Rodin's most celebrated works. The finished Balzac sculpture now stands in the garden of the Musée Rodin.