Conceived between 1882-1885, this example was cast in bronze in 1968 at the Georges Rudier foundry by the order of Musée Rodin. On its pedestal is the following excerpt from Charles Baudelaire’s poem La Beauté, in Rodin’s handwriting:

“Je suis belle, ô mortels, comme un rêve de pierre
Et mon sein, où chacun s’est meurtri tour à tour
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière”

[I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast, where each one in his turn has bruised himself,
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter itself.]

This extraordinary composition was first formed as part of Rodin's Gates of Hell. Initially conceived as two separate figures, the man hanging under the lintel of the left hand door, and the woman crouching to the left of the Thinker, Rodin then brought them together, with slight alterations, to form the couple at the top of the right hand plaster. When the artist then made this a free standing sculpture, he added the poem by Baudelaire to the base of the figures.

While still looking back to Renaissance and Mannerist sculpture, the curled up woman in the man's arms forms a precariously balanced and unclassical composition. The feeling of movement is enhanced by the sweeping upwards gesture of the man, and the position of his feet, hardly placed on the ground, that suggests he is about to tip forward. The dynamic composition of the present work exemplifies Rodin's modern approach to sculpture that initially shocked his contemporaries and confirms him as one of the greatest sculptors in the history of Modern art.

see: J. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, pp. 99-101.