Jean d'Aire (1884): Art, History and Details

Jean d'Aire (1884) 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:

In 1884 Rodin received a commission to create a large public monument honoring six French men who volunteered to be taken prisoner by an English army in exchange for the English releasing the town of Calais from a brutal 11-month siege. This reduced cast depicts one of the volunteers from the monument. Rather than idealized heroes, Rodin portrays the prominent citizens known as burghers as ordinary men experiencing personal confrontations with death. Jean d’Aire faces his fate with stoic resolve. The thick folds of his tunic weigh heavily on his body, as if symbolic of an internal struggle between his willingness to sacrifice his life and a desire to live. His intense glare into space seems to betray the dread and anxiety raging within his mind. Immensely popular as an independent sculpture, Rodin made numerous versions in various sizes.

Object facts

• Title: Jean d'Aire
• Date: 1884
• Creator attribution: Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 47 x 16.5 x 12.1 cm (18 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Sculpture 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1917.723

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.