In 1889 Rodin received a commission to produce a monument honoring the writer Victor Hugo (French, 1802–1885) for Paris’s Panthéon, a mausoleum for distinguished citizens of France. This bronze represents the artist’s second attempt. He portrays the standing poet crowned by a muse while allegorical figures encircle the tall pillar-like pedestal.

The French government eventually abandoned the project, but the assignment led Rodin to another work, the colossal Monument to Victor Hugo. You can see a version of the latter in the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.