In a recent revelation, officials from Glasgow’s art museums have announced the perplexing absence of a statue sculpted by the eminent French artist, Auguste Rodin. This particular piece belongs to his renowned collection, Les Bourgeois de Calais. Acquired by the Glasgow Museum directly from Rodin in 1901, the plaster statue was prominently displayed in Kelvingrove Park from June 25 to September 30, 1949, as per records from Glasgow Life, the entity overseeing several of Glasgow’s significant cultural establishments.
Les Bourgeois de Calais statue, measuring two meters, depicts Jean d’Aire, a pivotal figure in the Calais group. Jerome Le Blay, the director of the Comité Rodin, the institution that meticulously maintains a global catalogue of Rodin’s creations, conveyed this information to AFP. Emphasizing the historical backdrop, Le Blay remarked that the statue’s unaccounted absence, while unfortunate, should be contextualized. He elucidated that during the 1940s, plaster sculptures did not command significant attention. Present-day estimations suggest that this art piece would be valued at approximately 3.5 million euros.
Commissioned by the Calais municipality, the original bronze statues from Les Bourgeois de Calais series were a tribute to the local dignitaries’ valor during the Hundred Years’ War, when Calais was besieged by English forces. Unveiled in 1895, both bronze and plaster renditions of these statues are exhibited globally.
However, it is noteworthy that during the 1949 open-air showcase in Kelvingrove Park, this statue sustained damage, a detail confirmed by Glasgow Life. Speculations have it that this piece might have encountered a fate akin to another Rodin statue of John the Baptist from the same exhibition. The latter was damaged beyond repair, with its fragments now kept at the Glasgow Museum Resource Centre. Le Blay remains optimistic about potentially discovering traces of the Jean d’Aire statue in the archives.
Furthermore, a report by The Times sheds light on the disappearance of approximately 1,750 artefacts from Scottish museums, including gold coins associated with the 16th-century monarch, Queen Mary I of Scotland. This alarming trend is not confined to Scotland, as evidenced by the recent confession from the British Museum regarding pilferage of numerous artefacts from its reserves, leading to the director’s resignation. Similarly, Museum Wales, overseeing seven national museums, has reported 2,000 missing items. However, they postulate that many of these items might have been inadvertently misclassified or misplaced, remaining hopeful for their retrieval during subsequent inventory assessments.
With AFP
