The Burghers of Calais is a bronze sculptural group by Auguste Rodin, commissioned by the city of Calais in 1884 and completed in 1889. It commemorates an episode of the Hundred Years' War in which six leading citizens of Calais offered themselves to the besieging English king in 1346 to spare the rest of the town's population after an eleven-month siege. Rather than the heroic, triumphant style usual in public monuments, Rodin depicted the six men individually, marked by pain, anguish and resignation as they walk toward what they believe is execution, a treatment now seen as a landmark departure in the history of public sculpture.
Facts
Year CreatedCommissioned 1884, completed 1889 per Wikipedia. MediumCast sculpture, existing in 12 original castings and numerous copies 1 Commissioned By Connections
Created By
In Form
Source The Burghers of Calais (Wikipedia)
In Genre
Entity-backed identity for the genre enum value this work already carries, resolved to an arts art-form by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The genre fact itself, with its own citation, stays on the work unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Calais, located there.
Sources
1. The Burghers of Calais (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWikipedia, The Burghers of Calais, last sentence
The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.
Wikipedia, The Burghers of Calais, opening sentence
The Burghers of Calais (French: Les Bourgeois de Calais) is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in 12 original castings and numerous copies.
Genre reference
The Burghers of Calais is a bronze sculptural group by Auguste Rodin, commissioned by the city of Calais in 1884 and completed in 1889.
In Form: Sculpture, lead paragraph
The Burghers of Calais (French: Les Bourgeois de Calais) is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in 12 original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the Englis
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