Ugolino and his Sons
1880-85
Imagine being trapped in a tower with no food—that's the nightmare scene Rodin sketches here, depicting Count Ugolino from Dante's Inferno starving alongside his children. The frantic, scribbled lines show the kids climbing over their father's wasting body in a desperate embrace, with Rodin's own handwriting in the corner noting '8 days' to mark the agonizing countdown. It’s a raw, messy look at how the sculptor figured out the tangled limbs for his famous 'Gates of Hell' before making them permanent in bronze.
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