Rodin [antikvár]

Auguste Rodin was born on the 12th, November, 1840, at Paris, the second child of a quiet family living in the rue de l'Arbalete. He was an indifferent pupil, who paid little attention to his lessons, but he soon showed an exceptional gift for drawing, which induced his father to send him to the École Impériale de Dessin et de Mathématiques, which later became the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. From 1854 to 1857, he attended the classes of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a strict master who respected tradition in his teaching, while developing the faculty of observation in his students through drawing from memory. Rodin drew ceaselessly before the antiquities in the Louvre and at the Gobelins factory, copied prints and the paintings of the Old Masters, watched street scenes and the behaviour of animals. His vocation as a sculptor became clear when he realised the potentialities of modelling. His first attempts were criticised by Carpeaux and Hippolyte Maindron encouraged him to go in for the entrance competition for the École des Beaux-Arts. Despair at the death of his sister (1862) was added to the