Claudel started on the work c.1886, with two designs in terracotta, and a third (now lost) probably in clay or plaster. These terracotta studies were sold in 2017, with one bought by the
Musée d'Orsay in 2017 for €467,800, and the second sold for €65,000. In connection with her early work on the piece, on 8 November 1889 Claudel wrote to her friend Florence Jeans: "I’m now working on my two larger-than-life figures and I have two models per day: a woman in the morning, a man in the evening. You can understand how tired I am: I regularly work 12 hours a day, from 7 in the morning until 7 in the evening, and when I get home, it's impossible for me to remain standing and I go directly to bed." Claudel's plaster sculpture may have been influenced by Rodin's 1882 sculpture
The Kiss (
Le baiser) and his c.1884
Eternal Springtime (''L'Éternel Printemps''), but in turn it inspired Rodin's 1890-1893 sculpture
The Eternal Idol (''L'Eternelle idole
), and there are further echoes in his 1889 L'homme et sa pensée
. Her brother Paul was particularly annoyed at any comparison with The Kiss
as he considered Sakuntala'' to be far superior. In a 1988 biography of Rodin, Claudel's brother
Paul Claudel was quoted as saying, "In my sister's group, spirit is of the essence: the man on his knees; he is pure desire, his face lifted, yearning, clasping that which he does not dare to seize, this marvellous being, this sacred flesh which, at some higher level, has been bestowed on him. She yields, blind, mute, weighted down, succumbing to the gravity that is love; one of her arms hangs down like a branch broken by its fruit, the other covers her breasts and protects this heart, the supreme sanctuary of virginity. It is impossible to imagine anything more ardent and at the same time more chaste". Years later, Claudel was commissioned to create a smaller marble version of the sculpture by the Comtesse de Maigret, the wife of , whose bust Claudel had made in 1899. The completed sculpture, in white marble on red marble base, was completed in 1905 and measures . It was retitled
Vertumnus and Pomona, referring to the characters from
Greek mythology,
Pomona and
Vertumnus, whose tale is recounted in
Ovid's
Metamorphoses. In 1952,
Paul Claudel donated this marble sculpture to the
Musée Rodin. and another (#15) was put up for sale
Sotheby's in 2014. A third large bronze of
L’Abandon from the private collection of Camille's sister,
Louise Claudel, was sold for €1,187,000 at
Artcurial in Paris in 2017, in the same sale as the two c.1886 terracotta studies. One of the smaller casts (#2) was acquired by the
Musée Camille Claudel in 2008. File:Sakountala, étude, vers 1886, terre cuite, Camille Claudel (2).jpg|Terracotta study, c.1886 File:Camille Claudel.- Etudes (1).jpg|Terracotta study, c.1886, exhibited at
Roubaix File:Sakuntala, de Camille Claudel, original en plâtre, Musée Bertrand.jpg|Plaster original, 1888, Musée Bertrand File:Camille Claudel.- Sakountala, dite Vertumne et Pomone, 1905, marbre (2).jpg|
Vertumnus and Pomona, marble, 1905, Musée Rodin File:Cacountala ou l'abandon Camille Claudel 1888 - 01.jpg|
L’Abandon, 1905, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Cambrai File:The Kiss.JPG|Rodin,
The Kiss, 1882 File:105 La eterna primavera.jpg|Rodin,
Eternal Springtime, c. 1884 File:Marble sculpture - Rodin.jpg|Rodin, ''L'Eternelle idole'', marble, Musée Rodin, 1890-1893 ==See also==