1892
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Camille moves to
11 Avenue de La Bourdonnais.
Camille spends some time at the Château d'Islette in Touraine, where she
had been with Rodin before, and invites him to visit her:
"Monsieur Rodin,
with nothing else to do, I write you again. You can't imagine how
beautiful the weather is at Islette. Today I ate in the middle-room (...).
Madame Courcelles has proposed, that if it is agreeable for you, you can
eat there from time to time, even all the time if you wish (actually, I
think it would please her), and it's so beautiful there! (...)
If you are very nice and keep your promise, we can have this paradise
together. You can have any room you wish for your work. I think the old
woman will be at our beck and call. (...)
It would be awfully sweet if you would buy me a bathing suit, two-piece,
dark-blue with white trim (get a medium) from the Louvre or the Bon
Marché (...).
I sleep nude in order to make myself think you are there, but when I wake
it's not the same.
PS: And especially don't deceive me anymore."
Grunfeld and Butler differ on the point if Rodin had actually deceived Camille with other
women by then; Grunfeld quotes Octave Mirbeau, who in July 1889 described
Rodin as " himself the fearsome satyr he depicts in his erotic sculpture"
and reported to Edmond de Goncourt how Rodin, when visiting Monet, had
stared at his four beautiful daughters, so that each of them was obliged
to get up and leave the dinner table.
Whether Rodin actually had other side affairs with his
models or Camille's suspicions were merely rooted in paranoia (as Butler
believes), Rodin's continuing relationship with Rose alone was a source of
permanent jealousy. The same year, Camille starts drawing biting caricatures on Rodin,
unable to free himself from this "collage".
Reine-Marie Paris suggests, Camille may have stayed at the Château d'Islette
to recover from an abortion. In 1976, Romain Rolland's widow reported that Paul Claudel had told her
Camille had been pregnant once by Rodin and had had an abortion, but there
is no definitive evidence for this. Camille's friend Jessie
Lipscomb later purports however, Rodin had two children with Camille, who were
raised in a boarding school. Judith Cladel even suspected, they had four
children, but Rodin denied her question:
"These are just stories. In that case my duty would
have been clear."
S.N.B.A.: 'Bust of Rodin', bronze.
Camille takes part at the exhibition Blanc et Noir with one work.
Elaboration of La Valse.
Camille is the model of 'La Convalescente' and 'L'Adieu' by Rodin.
First version of 'La Jeune Fille Violaine' by Paul Claudel.
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1893
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'Torso of Clotho',
'La Petite Châtelaine', plaster, and 'Aurore', plaster.
Rodin takes the chair of Dalou as president of the section sculpture at the S.N.B.A.
Camille becomes a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
S.N.B.A.: 'La Valse' and 'Clotho'; Octave Mirbeau and Gustave Geffroy commend both works. To get more distance
from Rodin’s influence in modeling, she works out similar motifs in a different manner. More and more she finds to the natural and
non-allegorical description of humans – her own style of expression. She
includes scenes from daily life in narrative compositions.
In April, Paul becomes the vice-consul in New York, and in December Consul Suppléant in Boston.
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