Rodin in front of "The Gates of Hell"

At the height of his career, Rodin occasionally exchanged one of his sculptures or drawings for a photograph, as he did, in 1913, for this portrait by Gertrude Käsebier.

Close to Alfred Stieglitz and a member of the Linked Ring group, she came to Paris in 1905 to photograph Rodin. She brought her own special universe with her : her allegorical images handled subjects such as motherdaughter relationships, families and old age. While her version of the sculptor as a creative genius is thus close to the works of her fellow Pictorialists, one by no means insignificant detail makes her vision unique: she was the only woman to have ever photographed Rodin.