Danaids1.0066

Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, "The Danaïd" (1885), marble sculpture in numerous versions in various media (stone, terracotta, plaster, bronze). Musée Rodin, Paris. — Other versions are in the Musée d'Orsay, the Ny Carlsberg Glytpothek, Helsinki's Kunstmuseum Athenaeum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisonb, the Swedish Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, the Musée Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Baltimore Museum of Art, Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, FL, LA County Museum, Maryhill Museum of Fine Arts, Washington, Stanford University Art Gallery, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, St-Etienne, Nationalgalleriet, Oslo, and in private collections.

The Danaid herself flows into the water that pours from vase she has dropped in eternal despair. Rodin crafts this fluid feminine masterpiece, evoking the Danaid's eternal punishment of drawing water forever in leaky vessels, for his Gates of Hell. The figure was, however, not used in that intended group. Although many Danaid sculptures are used in fountains, Rodin's sculpture herself is a figurative fountain, ever flowing.