Why a 20-Year-Old Rodin Carved His Father Like an Ancient Roman

This bust depicts Rodin's father, Jean-Baptiste, and dates to around 1860, when Rodin was just twenty — one of the earliest sculptures he's known to have made. His father, a police officer in Paris, was reportedly strict with his children.

Yet in this piece, Rodin rendered his father with the bearing of a dignified figure from ancient Rome. At the time, Rodin was spending considerable time at the Louvre studying classical sculpture, and that influence shows: his father's face carries an atmosphere not unlike the sculpture of Greece and Rome.