"L'Age mûr" (Maturity) by Camille Claudel

The Musée d'Orsay owed it to its public to acquire two major works by Camille Claudel. In 1982, L'Âge mûr (the first bronze melted during the artist's life) entered its collections, and in 1988, the Clotho torso, in plaster, came in its turn to evoke "that destiny spinning its own skein, that gothic old woman similar to a spider caught in its own web" (Paul Claudel, 1951). La Parque, spinning the thread of her own life, was a premonitory self-portrait ; L'Âge mûr was a self-portrait contemporary with her separation from Rodin. The exhibition was an opportunity to gather portraits of Camille Claudel with her own self-portraits. The catalogue of this exhibition proceeds by accumulation, comparing the writings with the works displayed, which were few but of an exceptional quality.