The Three Shades

The Three Shades (Les Trois Ombres) is a sculptural group produced in plaster by Auguste Rodin in 1886 for his The Gates of Hell. He made several individual studies for the Shades before finally deciding to put them together as three identical figures gathered around a central point. The heads hang low so that the neck and shoulders form an almost-horizontal plane. They were to be placed above the gates looking down on the viewer.

Les Trois Ombres
Les Trois Ombres, plaster original, Musée Rodin, Paris, 1886
Artist	Auguste Rodin
Medium	Plaster, later bronze

It was later cast in bronze in several editions, with such casts now in the Musée Rodin in Paris[1], the Cantor Sculpture Garden at Stanford University, in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia and the Museo Soumaya in Mexico . An autograph plaster copy dating to 1917 is also in the Musée d'arts de Nantes.

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  Bronze cast outside the Musée Rodin
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  Close up of the bronze cast at Musée Rodin, Paris.
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  Plaster version at the Musée d'arts de Nantes
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  Bronze cast at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
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  Bronze cast at the Museo Soumaya