The Fall of the Angels (c. 1890–1900): Art, History and Details

The Fall of the Angels (c. 1890–1900) 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:

The entwined couple in this sculpture recalls the figures on Rodin’s monumental doorway The Gates of Hell. Struck by Dante Alighieri’s descriptions of the damned suffering in hell because of their sins of the flesh, Rodin populated his portal with embracing lovers symbolic of carnal desire and sensual pleasure. Here, a winged figure alludes to the biblical account of the angels who were cast out of Heaven after siding with Satan (Revelation 12:4). Rodin preferred marble for erotic subjects. The juxtaposition between the smooth, sensual surfaces of the figures and the rough-hewn areas below gives the impression that the couple is blossoming into life from hard, lifeless stone.

Object facts

• Title: The Fall of the Angels
• Date: c. 1890–1900
• Creator attribution: Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
• Culture: France, late 19th-early 20th Century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 53.5 x 69.9 x 40.6 cm (21 1/16 x 27 1/2 x 16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Sculpture 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1960.85

Collection credit

Gift of Carrie Moss Halle in memory of Salmon Portland Halle

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 52, no. 9 (1965): 124-57.
• Tacha, Athena. Rodin Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.

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.