Rodin conceived the Eternal Idol whilst working on the Gates of Hell, incorporating both of the figures independently onto the right-hand doorway. Sometime before 1890, the figures were combined into the group we now know.

The work became one of Rodin’s most powerful groups and its emotive force has elicited a range of symbolic interpretations. It is often seen as a depiction of tender adoration, the man’s hands clasped behind his back in a symbol of respectful abstinence. Conversely, others have suggested the man’s hands are not clasped in a respectful manner, but rather show that he is enslaved by the woman, unable to escape her power as she looks down pitifully upon him.

It is also impossible to ignore the similarities to Camille Claudel’s L’Abandon, which was conceived in 1888, one year before the present work. Claudel’s masterpiece uses a similar composition, but the two figures are shown in a loving embrace, rather than separated by the apparent gulf of emotional space in Eternal Idol. Perhaps the work echoed Rodin’s own feelings towards his long-term lover and mistress who he was soon to reject forever.

Jules Desbois, one of Rodin’s many assistants offers the following account of the work's inception: ‘One day, from up on the scaffold where I was working on the Burgers of Calais, I noticed Rodin, who between some screens, was doing a nude sculpture, for which the model was a young woman, stretched out on a table. As the session was drawing to a close, he bent over toward the woman and kissed her tenderly on the belly - a gesture of adoration of nature, which gave him much joy.’ (Cladel, 1953, p. 271)

Perhaps, like a number of Rodin’s greatest masterpieces, the true power of the model lies in its ambiguity. The novelist and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote a monograph on Rodin in 1903, argued that ‘a grandeur steeped in mystery emanates from this group. One dare not attribute a meaning to it. It has thousands... There is something like the atmosphere of Purgatory in this work. Heaven is near but has not yet been reached; Hell is near but has not yet been forgotten.’ (Rilke, 2018, p.51).

This cast was produced in the medium size, measuring at 11 1⁄2“ ( 29.4 cm).

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