Contribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and Jaw

Contribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and Jaw

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Best known for his influential sculptural work in the late nineteenth century, Rodin adjusted his artistic focus during the war. The trench warfare that characterized World War I was particularly conducive to facial injuries. Shrapnel and gunfire left men with garish facial scarring and mutilation. The Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds to the Face and Jaw offered reconstructive surgery for injured soldiers. (Many techniques developed during this period are still used in plastic surgery today.) This print served both as a receipt for donations to the hospital and as an illustration of the kind of transformation the surgery could achieve. About the war, Rodin wrote, "The patience of the soldier, the patience of the trenches, surpasses in sublimity the virtues of the ancients. Will it produce a rebirth of intelligence?"

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Contribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and JawContribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and JawContribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and JawContribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and JawContribution Receipt of the Special American Hospital in Paris for Wounds of the Face and Jaw

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.