Camille Claudel’s work is very powerful and deserves recognition with the greats of the period, but the essay gives the impression that Claudel learned to sculpt from Rodin, and that is not the case. She studied with sculptor Alfred Boucher, along with three wealthy British sculptresses, one of whose father owned a foundry that cast bronze. Boucher and Rodin were friends, and Boucher placed Claudel in Rodin’s studio. Rodin strongly championed Claudel even after they were no longer romantically involved, until she created the sculpture The Mature Age pictured with the article, which he detested. He may have thought that he was the subject.

Unlike painting, casting in bronze is an involved and expensive process that requires specialized facilities and skilled craftsmen besides the artist. Claudel was less a feminist than an artist who was in the right place at the right time, and knew the right people to create her art, and she did everything she could to be allowed to demonstrate her talent. There were certainly many hundreds of other mostly male sculptors in Fin de siècle Paris, though certainly few as good as she was, that never had a chance to cast their work in bronze. Claudel wasn’t political, and it’s hard to argue that she was a friend to other women when you consider Mrs. Rodin. Camille Claudel also did not have two brothers, she had her pretty awful brother Paul, and a sister Louise who also benefited from her being committed.