What was the name of Auguste Rodin’s first major bronze monument to a city’s citizens?

Auguste Rodin’s major bronze monument to a city’s citizens was The Burghers of Calais.

The work honors six citizens of Calais who, according to a medieval account, volunteered to surrender themselves as hostages during the city’s capitulation in 1347. Rodin’s composition is unusual because it gives each man an individual body, gesture, and emotional response. The group therefore resists the idea of a single, simplified heroic pose.

Rodin received the commission in 1884 and completed the monument for unveiling in 1895. He designed the figures to be encountered at a relatively low level, an arrangement that made the monument more intimate and physically immediate. The original installation generated disagreement over its appearance and placement.

The Burghers of Calais became one of Rodin’s best-known public works. Multiple authorized casts exist in museums and civic settings, so the work is encountered in more than one country. The title refers to the six men, not to every resident of medieval Calais.