Beautiful Heaulmière|Auguste Rodin |Search Collection | The National Museum of Western Art

Updated 14 April 2025

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Photo by (c) Norihiro Ueno

Currently not on display

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Auguste Rodin

Paris, 1840 - Meudon, 1917

Beautiful Heaulmière

Date	1885-87 (model)
Materials and Techniques	bronze
Size（cm）	50 x 31 x 24
Inscriptions	Signed right side of base: A. Rodin; Foundry mark lower back of base: Alexis Rudier / Fondeur Paris
Credit Line	Matsukata Collection
Standard ref.	M1253
Category	Sculptures
Collection Number	S.1959-0005

Rodin was said to have been struck by a sense of sadness when he saw a statue The Destitution by Jules Desbois (1851-1935) and later received an introduction to the old woman who had modeled for the piece. The old woman was an Italian named Marie Caira. Rodin posed Caira and then created this work after sitting and observing her form for hours. This sculpture with its modeling that faithfully captures the effect of an old, ugly weather beaten body is one of Rodin's most naturalist works. This old woman is placed on the left pillar on The Gates of Hell, where it, along with a baby and a mother, forms a low relief group symbolizing mankind's life as it spans birth, youth and the decline into old age. The name of the work, Heaulmière comes from the ballad entitled "Les Regrets de la Belle Heaulmière" from the Le Testament by François Villon. This poem depicts the anguish of a woman with a peerless beauty, called La Belle Heaulmière who has becomes an old woman. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 135)

Provenance

Bought from Musée Rodin by Kojiro Matsukata, Kobe through Léonce Bénédite, ca. February 1919, as ‘La vieille Heaulmière’ (Fr. 8,000) [see several letters between Bénédite and Suzuki & Co., February 1919, in Archives of Musée Rodin, Paris; copy in NMWA curatorial files]; sequestered by French government, 1944; vested in French government under San Francisco Peace Treaty, 1952; transferred from French to Japanese government, 23 January 1959; entered into NMWA, April 1959.

Exhibition History

1989: Rodin et la Porte de l’Enfer (Rodin and the Gates of Hell), National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 21 October 1989 - 17 December 1989, cat. no. 10
1991: Auguste Rodin, Das Höllentor: Zeichnungen und Plastik, Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, 28 September 1991 - 6 January 1992, cat. no. 64, repr.
1996: Camille Claudel, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, 1 June 1996 - 14 July 1996, Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 20 july-18 August, cat. 76, repr.
2015: Japan's Love for Impressionism: From Monet to Renoir, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 8 October 2015 - 21 February 2016, cat. no. 76, col. repr.
2017: [Traveling Exhibitions Presenting National Art Museum Collections, Fiscal 2017] Muse: Women before the Artists' Eyes: From the Collection of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, 22 April 2017 - 2 July 2017, Akita Museum of Modern Art, 15 July-18 September, cat. no. 42
2020: 100 Years of BUNRIHA: Can Architecture Be Art?, Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art, 10 October 2020 - 25 December 2020, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 6 January-7 March 2021, no.III-3, col. repr.
2022: Renoir—Monet—Gauguin: Images of a Floating World: the Collections of Kōjirō Matsukata and Karl Ernst Osthaus, Museum Folkwang, 6 February 2022 - 15 May 2022

Bibliography

1990: The Old Matsukata Collection. Kobe City Museum, ed. Kobe, "Matsukata Korekushon Ten" Jikkoiinkai, 1990, cat. no. S-19.
1991: Auguste Rodin: Das Höllentor: Zeichnungen und Plastik (exh. cat.). Fath, Manfred, ed. München, Prestel-Verlag, 1991, pp. 106-107. 145, cat. no. 64, repr.
1996: Camille Claudel (exh. cat.). APT International, ed. [Tokyo], APT International, 1996, pp. 144-145, 197, cat. no. 76, repr.
2006: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2006 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 135, repr.
2009: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2009, no. 135, repr.
2013: Masterpieces: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2013 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 134, col. repr.
2015: Japan's Love for Impressionism: From Monet to Renoir (exh. cat.). Marks-Hanssen, Beate, ed. Bonn, Bundeskunsthalle, 2015, pp. 134, 246, cat. no. 76, col. repr.
2017: Muse: Women before the Artists' Eyes: from the Collection of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo: Traveling Exhibitions Presenting National Art Museum Collections, Fiscal 2017 (exh. cat.). Nakada, Asuka, ed. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2017, pp. 68, 139, cat. no. 42, col. repr.
2019: The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art. Kawaguchi, Masako; Jingaoka, Megumi, eds. vol. 2: Sculpture, Drawings, Prints and Decorative Arts and Other Works, Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2019, cat. no. 1253, col. repr.
2020: 100 Years of Bunriha: Can Architecture be Art? (exh. cat.). Omura, Rieko; Motohashi. Jin, eds. [Tokyo], Asahi- Shimbun, 2020, pp. 98, 223, 269, cat. no. III-1, col. repr.
2022: Renoir—Monet—Gauguin: Images of a Floating World: the Collections of Kōjirō Matsukata and Karl Ernst Osthaus (exh.cat.). Engel, Nadine; Herlemann, Rebecca, eds. Berlin, Hatje Cantz, [2022], pp. 231, 368, col. repr.

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