L’Abandon (Sakountala) was inspired by Claudel’s passionate love affair with Auguste Rodin. Rodin was already famous when, aged 42, he met the 18 year-old Claudel at an artist’s studio in Paris in 1883. Soon afterwards, they began an affair which was to last 15 years and was the catalyst for some of their finest work. L’Abandon was originally conceived in terracotta in 1886, only three years after they began their affair.

The bronze is based on the eponymous 5th century Hindu legend in which the heroine, Sakountala, loses the affection of her beloved prince only to regain it once more. It depicts a man on his knees in front of a seated woman and is an ironic role reversal of Rodin’s 1881 sculpture Eternal Spring where it is the woman who kneels. Claudel’s L’Abandon is a powerful symbol of tenderness, equality and hope contrasting strongly with the machismo of Rodin’s work. It also evokes Rodin’s own words to Claudel in a letter written in late 1884 or early 1885: “My very dearest, down on both knees before your beautiful body which I embrace.”