2-746-180 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Titans, Support for a Vase, c. 1877. After returning to Paris from Brussels in 1877, Rodin began collaborating with AlbertErnest Carrier-Belleuse, one of the most fashionable French sculptors of the period. Together they designed objects for the Sèvres porcelain factory where Carrier-Belleuse was art director. This pedestal, signed by Carrier-Belleuse, once served as the base for a decorative vase, now lost. Carrier-Belleuse designed the overall ensemble, leaving Rodin to model the figures. Their energetic poses and muscular bodies recall the ignudi figures on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. Each titan bears the weight of his burden in a uniquely contorted and exaggerated pose, creating a dramatic rhythm of rising and falling limbs that activate the surrounding space.