This work represents one of Rodin’s last studies for Balzac’s head. The deep hollow of the eyes is accentuated by a bulbous, beaklike nose. (Balzac reputedly told another sculptor, "Be careful of my nose; my nose is a world.") In Rodin’s hands, the head became not so much a physical portrait of the great writer as a rendering of the location from which his art and genius arose.