Rodin's Sketchbook - The Mastbaum Album
Named for its former owner, Jules Mastbaum, this is the most complete record of Rodin’s early draftsmanship. Rodin filled this sketchbook around 1860, before the creation of his first ambitious sculpture, The Mask of the Man with the Broken Nose, presented to the Salon in 1864. Even before he became a sculptor, Rodin recognized that drawing was the key to knowledge, and at this time he drew continually. This sketchbook bears witness to the diversity of studies the artist pursued then. It includes studies of animals and landscapes, spontaneous street scenes, and decorative figure studies. All of these subjects would have been typical for a French art student in the mid-nineteenth centuryIn 1854, at fourteen, Rodin began his art education at the Special Imperial School of Drawing and Mathematics, then known as the Petite École, that prepared young men for careers in technical draftsmanship and the decorative and applied arts. The eighteenth-century overtones in the sketchbook are likely the result of the curriculum at the Petite École. As a student, he was set to copying ancient sculpture and eighteenth-century drawings and prints. For this reason, Rodin also frequented the print room of the Imperial Library and galleries of the Louvre. He also studied at the studio of the Gobelins Tapestry Works, where he had the opportunity to draw from live models. The artistic interests of the future sculptor extended beyond studies of figures, as revealed by the spontaneous sketches of wild animals seen in the Ménagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, or the horses observed at the horse market in the Boulevard Saint-Marcel.
This sketchbook shows a more informal, personal side of Rodin's student practice, though little in it prefigures his mature work. Continual drawing was essential for Rodin to understand the model, and it provided the knowledge crucial to his development.
Sketchbook Development
This interactive sketchbook was conceived and developed as part of the celebration of the Rodin Museum's 75th Anniversary in 2004–2005. It is available both on this website and as an interactive kiosk in the Main Entrance Hall of the Rodin Museum.
For more information, please contact the Rodin Museum at (215) 568-6026.
