Bourdelle, "Femme sculpteur au travail" (1906)

We got up early to say goodbye to my sister and her family. We had a great visit with them and are finding the apartment very quiet now! T will get a few additional hours added on to her birthday by travelling through the time zones today. 

Laundry, an 80 km bike ride for J in the afternoon when the rain stopped and a museum visit for me... the Musée Bourdelle in Montparnasse has reopened after a renovation. Bourdelle was from Montauban like Léon Cladel and was a friend of the Cladel family, who may be the ones who introduced him to Rodin. There is a bust of Cladel in one of the gardens and Judith Cladel posed for another work by him. The museum is in his studio in Montparnasse and does a great job of recreating the feeling of a working studio in the early 20th c. It also incorporates garden courtyards and a very high ceiling-ed room for Bourdelle's plasters. My favourite was the room about Bourdelle's students, many of whom were women - I particularly liked this energetic statue, but Bourdelle's bust of Germaine Richier is fabulous as well.