Contact Musée Rodin – Hadrien Tagu
19, boulevard des Invalides
75007 Paris – France
tagu@musee-rodin.fr
Phone: +33 (0)1 44 18 61 57
"Alma Mahler’s stepfather, Carl Moll, asked Paul Clemenceau, whose wife was Viennese,
to commission a bust of Mahler from Rodin. Moll and several of Mahler’s friends
wanted to pay tribute to the composer after he left the Vienna Opera in 1907.
Rodin accepted the commission, but Mahler, who hated the idea of sitting for a bust,
refused to pose. To trick him into consenting, Sophie Clemenceau arranged for Mahler
to be told that the sculptor had asked to do his portrait. The sittings began in April 1909,
were interrupted, and then resumed in October. “They don’t speak to each other,
being quite content to observe one another; and yet, they understand each other
perfectly,” she wrote. When Mahler left France for America, Rodin continued working
on the portrait and had a marble version of it carved, entitled Mozart. The sculptor used his secretary, Mario Meunier, whom he thought looked very much like Mahler, as a replacement model.
Rodin proceeded in his usual manner, walking around the sitter to capture every profile.
The planes of the face are broad, the modelling expressive and the piercing gaze recalls the
musician who once said, “If I didn’t have to wear glasses, I would conduct with my eyes.”
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