Eve was sculpted in 1881. Rodin, studied his model, the brunette Anna Abruzzezzi intently and was therefore puzzled that he needed to modify the pelvis of the figure every day. "Without knowing why, I saw my model changing", he confided to Dujardin-Beaumetz much later. "I modified my contours, naively following the successive transformations of ever-amplifying forms. One day, I learned that she was pregnant; then I understood. The contours of the belly had hardly changed, but you can see the sincerity with which I copied nature in looking at the muscles of the loins and sides. It certainly hadn't occurred to me to take a pregnant woman as a model for Eve; an accident - happy for me - gave her to me and it aided the character of the figure singularly. But soon, becoming more sensitive, my model found the studio too cold; she came less frequently, then not at all. That is why my Eve is unfinished" (H. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Entretiens avec Rodin, 1913). Rodin left aside the life-size version, whose irregular surface clearly indicated that it was unfinished, to execute a Small Eve or Young Eve, with a smoother and more sensual body, of which there are several versions and many examples. As for the large-scale Eve, the bronze version was only presented to the public at the Salon of the 1899 Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, while a plaster was included in the Rodin exhibition which traveled around Belgium and The Netherlands during the spring and summer of 1899.
