An auctioneer catalogued a dusty, abandoned apartment in Paris, and when he pulled back a sheet, he discovered a bronze sculpture that art historians thought was lost. According to a December 2024 Smithsonian Magazine publication, Matthieu Semont, an auctioneer, discovered a rare bronze sculpture created by French sculptor Camille Claudel hidden away in a Parisian apartment that hadn’t been occupied for 15 years. He said he had started crying upon seeing it and that it was really a magic moment. While no one knows how the sculpture made it into the apartment, experts at Cabinet Lacroix-Jeannest have authenticated the piece.

What the bronze sculpture depicts

This bronze piece is titled “The Age of Maturity.” It shows a man surrounded by two women, an older one and a younger one. The older woman is pulling the man forward while the younger one kneels behind. Many see the piece as having a personal meaning. According to a February 2025 The Art Newspaper article, Alexandre Lacroix, a Claudel expert, has said the young girl kneeling represents Claudel herself and the man resembles the “Burghers of Calais” created by Rodin.

The older woman is possibly a representation of Rose Beuret, Rodin’s long-term partner who eventually became his wife. Claudel began the piece around 1892, shortly after her relationship with Rodin ended, and completed it by 1898, some 15 years before she was sent to a psychiatric institution in 1913. This is just an interpretation of the piece, and experts say that you can interpret the sculpture in many ways, including a general commentary about life stages.

Then came the money

After discovering the piece in the quiet apartment, the bronze was sold after some fierce bidding for €3.1 million (€3.7 million including fees), per The Art Newspaper. The piece sold for over 50% more than its low estimate. One of three bidders who bid by phone won the piece, beating the bidder in the room. However, Semont would not say if the buyer was a private collector or an institution. This was the second-highest price a Claudel piece has sold for. The highest price, £5.1 million (including fees), was paid for an original version of Claudel’s bronze piece “The Waltz” at Sotheby’s London in June 2013.

The Rodin factor

Semont said that, after the sale in 2025, Claudel’s pieces still fall short of Rodin’s prices. Rodin pieces typically cost between €10 and €15 million. He went on to say that only a few Claudel pieces have come onto the market in recent years and they have cost around €1million.

The J. Paul Getty Museum describes Claudel as being remembered today mainly for the drama of her life story: her relationship with Rodin and her 30-year internment in a psychiatric institution, rather than for her art, which remains little known outside France. That reputation had already started shifting before this discovery: in 2023 and 2024, the Getty Museum collaborated with the Art Institute of Chicago to stage a major exhibition of 60 Claudel sculptures, aimed at reassessing her work and her position in modernist history. The 2025 sale suggests the market is now catching up to the case museums had already begun making for her. While her name may be less well known in America compared to France, Smithsonian Magazine noted her fame has been increasing in the past decade.

Why should this matter

An abandoned apartment, a bedsheet, and a mysterious masterpiece came together to produce a story that invites a second look at every covered shape in an old attic. It took a bit of luck, fierce bidding, and a few exhibitions for people to actually look at the work of a sculptor who spent decades surrounded by someone else’s fame.