Auguste Rodin made the original Monument to Balzac in plaster.
Rodin produced the monument as a large plaster model after researching Honoré de Balzac’s appearance and literary personality. The work’s heavy robe and simplified silhouette were central to the design, so the plaster model was not merely a preliminary sketch but the essential form in which Rodin presented his controversial conception.
When the monument was unveiled in 1898, its unusual surface and abstracted shape provoked strong criticism. Rodin retained the plaster after the public dispute, and later bronze casts were made from it. The most famous bronze versions therefore derive from the plaster original rather than replacing its historical importance.
A frequent mistake is to answer bronze because the work is commonly seen in bronze today. Bronze describes later casts; plaster identifies Rodin’s original model and the material at the center of the 1898 controversy.