Glasgow museums admitted that a £3million sculpture by the eminent French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) has been missing for nearly 75 years. Comité Rodin in Paris described the loss as “utterly shameful“, after museum staff were unable to locate the sculpture.  

“We lose a bit of humanity when we lose a work of art,” reflected Jérôme le Blay, director of Comité Rodin.  

Standing at six-and-a-half-foot tall, the mislaid sculpture is a plaster version of a figure from Rodin’s best-known public monument, Les Bourgeois de Calais (1889-1903). The original group depicts the sacrifice of Calais dignitaries during an 11-month siege by the English during the Hundred Years’ War in the late Middle Ages. Rodin made numerous different versions of Les Bourgeois in plaster and bronze.  

The artist himself sold one of his plaster versions to Glasgow museum in 1901. According to the Comité, the piece later “suffered damage” in 1949 while it was on public display in Kelvingrove Park for the Sculpture in the Open Air exhibition. At some point after this event, the sculpture mysteriously became “unlocated”.  

A report by The Times revealed that almost 1,750 items are currently listed as missing or stolen by Glasgow Museums. Alongside Rodin’s sculpture, this also includes a collection of gold coins linked to Queen Mary I of Scotland (1542-1587).  

Despite the recent announcement, a spokesperson for Glasgow Life, the organisation in charge of many of the Scottish city’s cultural venues, assured that “the process of recording, cataloguing and caring for the Glasgow Museums Collection has improved significantly since it was founded in the 1860s.“