Whistler's Muse 1907, Musée Rodin cast IV/IV in 1991 Bronze 88 x 35 ½  x  42 7/8 in. Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation In 1905 Rodin began work on a monument to ex-patriot American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The committee suggested a winged victorious figure symbolizing Whistler's success as an artist. Rodin, however, had a different vision and depicted a representation of "Venus climbing the mountain of fame." Although the preliminary studies received critical praise in Paris, the British committee remained unsatisfied, and the sculpture was never brought to fruition. Whistler's Muse is one of the few preliminary studies for this project that remain.