The Sirens

Auguste Rodin first exhibited the plaster cast of this magnificent sculpture at the famous exhibition Monet-Rodin, presented in 1889 by the Georges Petit gallery in Paris, which brought these two great artists together. “Three intertwined sirens sing; each of a different stature and pose, they form an uneven group, staggered like pan pipes,” French critic Gustave Geffroy wrote. The popularity of this model proved long-lived: eighteen copies are known, four of which are in marble – the Museum houses the first of these four rare pieces.