Image: Modern Fine Art, New York
The composition represents six dignitaries of Calais who submitted to the English army in 1346. Their submission forms the historical situation represented by the group, with the figures brought together as the six people identified in the account. Rodin captured their grief, fear and uncertainty as they anticipated execution, before the English showed clemency. The emotional condition of the figures is therefore tied to their expectation of execution and to the clemency that followed.
The presented bronze was conceived in 1885 and cast in 1973; it is identified as number 8 of an edition of 12. Those dates distinguish the conception of the work from the later casting of this numbered example.
The announcement says that casts from this edition are held in the collections of The Met, the Rodin Museum and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., among other institutions. The named institutional collections are cited in connection with casts from the same edition.
