Male French Statue Bronze Sculpture

This is a bronze replica of Auguste Rodin Adam sculpture. In 1880, Rodin proposed to Turquet, the Undersecretary for Fine Arts, to flank his Gates of Hell by two colossal statues, Adam and Eve, the first sinners. The Gates of Hell is a monumental sculptural group that depicts a scene from The Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy written in the early 14th century. He had visited the two most famous versions of this subject, Masaccio Adam and Eve in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and the Sistine Chapel in Rome with Michelangelo frescos, featuring Adam reaching his hand out to God as the central scene. But being dissatisfied with his first outline of Adam, because he thought it too close to Michelangelo style, he destroyed this first version. Rodin made Adam look down instead of facing his Father-Creator. We understand this downward look as an expression of shame and guilt expressing the shame and remorse after the Fall to sin. He is posed in a contrapposto but unnatural pose as though the feeling of remorse writhes his body. He was captured using the age-old method of lost wax casting and finished with brown patina stain and is mounted upon a marble base. Bronze Dimensions with Marble Base: Height 18 X Width 9 inches. Weight: 17 LBS.