Heroic Head of Pierre de Wissant, One of the Burghers of Calais (1886): Art, History and Details

Heroic Head of Pierre de Wissant, One of the Burghers of Calais (1886) 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:

This sculpture depicts one of the figures in Rodin’s large public monument The Burghers of Calais (1884–89), featuring six French men who volunteered to be taken prisoner by the English in exchange for lifting the siege of Calais during the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). Pierre de Wissant’s anguished expression suggests extreme mental suffering as he contemplates his expected execution. Rodin exhibited a life-size version of the figure as an independent work before completing the monument. He later made multiple versions in various sizes and media. This plaster features a highly expressive, hand-worked surface inscribed in places with graphite and covered with delicate, tinted washes.

Object facts

• Title: Heroic Head of Pierre de Wissant, One of the Burghers of Calais
• Date: 1886
• Creator attribution: Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
• Culture: France, late 19th-early 20th Century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: plaster
• Dimensions: Overall: 85.1 x 61 x 50.8 cm (33 1/2 x 24 x 20 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Sculpture 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1917.722

Collection credit

Gift of Loïe Fuller

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Modern Sculpture at the Museum." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 6 (1917): 108-09.
• "Rodin Memorial Exhibition." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 9 (1917): 162-63.
• "Report of the Museum's Second Year." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 5, no. 6/7 (1918): 69-79.

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.