Study of a hand

"Small things, half-size, and he did not discard a single one... They were kept in flat drawers... He showed them to me and we took one or two which were particularly successful, and I remember him holding a small hand in each of his, and telling me with a big smile, 'these are really good'" (Sir Gerald Kelly).

Modelled by the dozen, these hands were always agile and lively, and had a surprisingly strong expressive power, thanks to which they became autonomous. Interpreted in bronze and in marble, enlarged, invested with a symbolical dimension as in The Cathedral or The Hand of God, the series soon ended up quite naturally with a cast of the artist's hand a few weeks before his death : the small women's torso held in his fingers is a moving symbol of Rodin's work.