Subsequently, they moved to Bar-le-Duc (1870), Nogent-sur-Seine (1876), and Wassy-sur-Blaise (1879), although they continued to spend summers in Villeneuve-sur-Fère, and the stark landscape of that region made a deep impression on the children.

[10] Claudel was fascinated with stone and soil as a child, and as a young woman she studied at the Académie Colarossi, one of the few places open to female students.

[12] The Académie Colarossi was more progressive than other arts institutions in that it not only allowed female students at the school but also permitted them to work from nude male models.

Several prominent Frome works are in London, including the Boadicea group on the Embankment, Cromwell, which graces the lawn in front of the Houses of Parliament, and the figure of Justice atop the Old Bailey.

General Gordon on his camel at Chatham Barracks was also cast in Frome, as were the eight lions that form part of the Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town.

All of these English friends had studied at the South Kensington Schools – that would become the Royal College of Art – before moving to Paris to be at the Academie Colarossi, where they had all met.

[19] Le Cornec and Pollock state that after the sculptors' physical relationship ended, she was not able to get the funding to realise many of her daring ideas – because of sex-based censorship and the sexual element of her work.

She also depended on him financially, especially after her loving and wealthy father's death, which allowed her mother and brother, who disapproved of her lifestyle, to maintain control of the family fortune and leave her to wander the streets dressed in beggars' clothing.

Others, like Morhardt and Caranfa, concurred, saying that their styles had become so different, with Rodin being more soft and delicate and Claudel being vehement with vigorous contrasts, which might have been one reason for their break up, with her becoming ultimately his rival.

Unlike Rodin and other male artists of the time, Claudel "did not shy away from exploring the female grotesque;" indeed, "she could find power in grotesquerie."

[29][28] One of Claudel's figures, The Implorer, was produced as an edition of its own and has been interpreted not as purely autobiographical but as an even more powerful representation of change and purpose in the human condition.

Successive versions of La Petite Châtelaine demonstrate Claudel's talent for carving in marble, a skill Rodin himself did not have.

[25] La Petite Châtelaine stands alone as a portrayal of young girlhood in 19th-century sculpture; "there is no trace here of the pubescent figure with noticeable nipples or of the decorative, soft-cheeked cherub," Peterson observes.

Sakuntala, 1888, is described by Angelo Caranfa as expressing Claudel's desire to reach the sacred, the fruit of the lifelong search of her artistic identity, free from Rodin's constraints.

[32] In The Chatterboxes, Claudel depicted subject matter that was exceedingly rare in European sculpture at that time: "platonic female intimacy, not as an excuse to display a breast or a hip for the onlooker, but as women actually experience it.

[34][35] Walker argues that most historians believe Rodin did what he could to help her after their separation, and that her destruction of her own oeuvre was partly responsible for the long-time neglect the art world showed her.

Walker also says that what truly defeated Camille, who was already recognised as a leading sculptor by many, were the sheer difficulties of the medium and the market: sculpting was an expensive art, and she did not receive many official commissions because her style was highly unusual for the contemporary conservative tastes.

Most modern authors agree that she was an outstanding genius who, starting with wealth, beauty, iron will and a brilliant future even before meeting Rodin, was never rewarded and died in loneliness, poverty, and obscurity.

][39] Others like Elsen, Matthews and Flemming suggest it was not Rodin, but her brother Paul who was jealous of her genius, and that he conspired with her mother, who never forgave her for her supposed immorality, to later ruin her and keep her confined to a mental hospital.

[47][48] After 1905, Claudel appeared to be mentally ill. She destroyed many of her statues, disappeared for long periods of time, exhibited signs of paranoia and was diagnosed as having schizophrenia.

[51] According to Cécile Bertran, a curator from the Musée Camille Claudel, the situation was not easy to judge, because modern experts who have looked at her records say she was indeed ill.[8] In 1914, to be safe from advancing German troops, the patients at Ville-Évrard were at first relocated to Enghien.

Her certificate of admittance to Montdevergues was signed on 22 September 1914; it reported that she suffered "from a systematic persecution delirium mostly based upon false interpretations and imagination".

Her brother Paul had been informed of his sister's terminal illness in September and, with some difficulty, had crossed Occupied France to see her, although he was not present at her death or funeral.

Paul's neglect regarding his sister's grave is hard to forgive...while Paul decided not to be burdened with his sister's grave, he took great pains, on the contrary, in choosing his own final resting place, naming the exact location – in Brangues, under a tree, next to his grandchild – and citing the precise words to be written on the stone.

In Villeneuve, a simple plaque reminds the curious visitor that Camille Claudel once lived there, but her remains are still in exile, somewhere, just a few steps away from the place where she was sequestered for thirty years.

In 2005 a large art display featuring the works of Rodin and Claudel was exhibited in Quebec City (Canada), and Detroit, Michigan, in the US.

Written, performed and directed by Gaël Le Cornec, premiered at the Pleasance Courtyard Edinburgh Festival, the play looks at the relationship of master and muse from the perspective of Camille at different stages in her life.

[74] The composer Jeremy Beck's Death of a Little Girl with Doves (1998), an operatic soliloquy for soprano and orchestra, is based on the life and letters of Camille Claudel.

[75] Beck's composition has been described as "a deeply attractive and touching piece of writing ... [demonstrating] imperious melodic confidence, fluent emotional command and yielding tenderness.

The ballet is dedicated to the life and creative work of sculptor Auguste Rodin and his apprentice, lover and muse, Camille Claudel.