Bust of Victor Hugo (1883): Art, History and Details

Bust of Victor Hugo (1883) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Unlike most of Rodin’s portraits, the bust of Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was made from memory because the famous French writer refused to sit for the artist. Among Hugo’s best-known novels are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

Object facts

• Title: Bust of Victor Hugo
• Date: 1883
• Creator attribution: Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 56.2 x 26.8 x 26.1 cm (22 1/8 x 10 9/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Sculpture 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1940.580

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tacha, Athena. Rodin Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.
• Tacha, Athena. A Supplement to Rodin Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.