Listen to the episode here.

Join us this week as we celebrate Women’s History Month with two incredible women.

Angie kicks us off with Tarenorerer. This aboriginal woman comes from Tasmania. After being a slave for a brief period, our girl escapes from slavery and shows the colonizers how much of a pain this rebel leader can be.

Theresa picks up from here and regales us with the story of French sculptress – Camille Claudel. This woman comes of age during the late 1800s and makes a name for herself while having a tumultuous relationship with renowned artist, Rodin – who is also married. This trainwreck is bigger and worse than you think it will go.

This episode pairs well with:

General Harriet Tubman
The Queen of the Paris Lesbians – Natalie Clifford Barney

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two friends read history memes and then research the backgrounds behind them, join forces, and tell their friends the story they only recently learned. I’m host one, I’m Theresa, and that is host two. I’m Angie.

Angie: And you’ve joined us. Welcome. Welcome.

Theresa: Welcome, host three. You know, you say that, but I recently started adding transcripts to our episodes. And in doing so, I made a very hilarious discovery. AI translates my voice as speaker one and speaker three. You are speaker two. So apparently I sound different between intro and the next thing I say. I love this.

Angie: Is the third speaker in the room with us?

Theresa: In my head, and it’s just screaming. Well, you know, at least you can acknowledge it. I suppose that’s the first step to healing, right? I’m told. How wonderful. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t even have the spreadsheet up. I don’t know who’s going first.

Angie: Oh, I can look really quick. Okay. Allow me to wreck your world, little country girl. Wow. I know.

Theresa: I don’t know. I don’t want to wreck your world in that way. I’m just I’m just singing songs.

Angie: Yeah, so it’s me.

Theresa: And the task I am here for this.

Angie: I really wanted to follow up with it’s you. I told you I’d wreck your world, but I mean, play that way.

Theresa: You could have lied.

Angie: For like the next few minutes, and then you would have seen the spreadsheet anyway, and you would have texted me and been like Angie. But see, then you would have just giggled and walked off like truly.

Theresa: There was there was a post I saw. I can’t remember if it was on Twitter or somewhere. It was it was like on one of those things where this person said she used to work for.

I don’t know, some fact based company. I want to say it was like like a it was sports related. It was like something Hall of Fame or something museum, but it was it was a sports sports thing.

It’s sports. So I don’t remember. And they had like a fact line and somebody called and you know, it’s his woman on the phone. And she says, Hey, I just wanted to confirm that who won the Super Bowl of like 1980, whatever. And the person’s like, Oh, it was so and so. And she hears the woman yell the opposite team’s name to the crowd. I told you it was blank and then hangs up.

Angie: Because we couldn’t Google that. I love that.

Theresa: I just like the fact that she lied. She got the information and then yelled her information, which was counter to it to the team.

Angie: Hey, you know, sometimes you got to you got to do the thing. I one of my bosses who has since moved out of the area is a repository for weird football knowledge. You can no joke ask him who the third lineman from the West was for the Denver’s 89 team. And he would tell you like you could be so utterly specific or so utterly vague and he would know I know people on sale.

Theresa: They could do that with Simpson’s knowledge. Yeah, I feel like sports is more known.

Angie: You know, like everybody’s got that one weird thing. They’re like, Oh, please ask me about this.

Theresa: I’m ready for it. I could do my Ted talk today. Right. Let’s go.

Angie: Oh, it’s me.

Theresa: Yeah, you’re waiting for me to do things and it’s not happening.

Angie: Like I’m not even you today. It’s me today. Hold on. All right. How do you get my how do you get my notes in the right place so I could actually like see my notes, you know, like I can’t tell you the story from memory. It would not go the same way that it actually went real. I’m here for it. Oh, okay. For my retelling of the story.

Theresa: Yeah. And then we’re going to be all corrections. It’s like, okay, so I said that they were German, but really they were Scottish and that this happened.

Angie: It turns out they were in Sweden from the beginning.

Theresa: Like, yeah, they never had kids. I don’t know where the kids came in. I think I projected them.

Angie: They would have had cute kids. Okay. So my main source is an Atlas Obscura article by Valerie Castellanos Clark from March of 24. There is girl museum.org. There’s a really great like infographic called when did the British settle Tasmania, which I thought was very helpful. A couple of Britannica articles and then an Australian dictionary of biography.

I didn’t know that was a thing and it’s an interesting place to be. So with that being said, my story is from an area that we haven’t really covered a ton and I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m going to take us all the way back to the 19th century Australia, more specifically Tasmania. One of the indigenous names for Tasmania is Lutruita. I’m going to do my very best to pay all the attention and all of my goodness to pronouncing all of these names right because I feel like doing so gives something back to the people who’s so much of their livelihood was taken from them. I love this.

So if I pronounce it wrong and someone out there in the world knows how to pronounce it right, I would love nothing more than to be told so I can say it right next time.

Theresa: And then I will tell you that right now we don’t have listeners in Tasmania, but we’ve covered pretty much all of the other Australian areas. Territories. Is that what they’re called? Because I’m like they’re not provinces, they’re not precinctures. I hate territories. Okay, yeah, I don’t know what they call them. But yeah, Tasmania remains off our bingo card. Well, Tasmanian Virginia.

Angie: It was Vermont, wasn’t it? Vermont is… They’re thinking about their ways.

Theresa: They’re in time out. I mean, we’re getting sputters. It’s like everybody loves us, but Vermont, like we have so many more listeners in South and North Dakota. That’s so weird to me. New York, tons of listeners. You whisper across the border, it’s silence.

Angie: What’s your deal, Vermont?

Theresa: I mean, look, honestly, I kind of love this for them. It gives us… We don’t have all the love and respect. We have enough to make us here and for more. I fucked it all.

Angie: So, giving you a little bit of backstory here just so we kind of set the stage for where we’re at. Modern-day Tasmania is where the bulk of my story takes place. For those that are wondering, Tasmania is 240 kilometers or 150 miles to the south of the Australian mainland.

It’s separated by the base straight. I actually called my Australian friend and their response to Tasmania was something to the effect of. Tasmania is to Australia like Hawaii is to the mainland US. It’s just over there. I was like, okay, thank you. That was super helpful.

I understand what that meant. The first Europeans to kind of work their way towards Australia were Dutch sailors in the 1600s. However, they didn’t really set up shop about that time. They’re just kind of cruising by the area. They may have landed and taken in some of the locales, if you will. I understand a fight broke out at one point according to oral history, but the Dutch sailors didn’t stay. So, to say that they were the first settlers wouldn’t really be true. But in January of 1788, the first British, and then by extension the first Europeans to make landfall and set up shop in Australia, they decided to stay because peon colonies and things like that need to exist.

Theresa: I mean, I don’t think they do, but others think they do.

Angie: So, that’s 1788 when the first crews start coming over. By 1803, they start to try to colonize Lutorita, which is Tasmania. By this point, though, there’s like a small number of whalers and sealers in the North Coast area and the base straight islands.

For a while there, there’s not a problem. But within the first year, the European soldiers fire upon an Indigenous hunting party, and this begins nearly 25 years of a bloody conflict called Black War. This is waged between British soldiers slash settlers and the Indigenous people of the area.

So, this is sort of the world my people are living in. And they are not surprised, I don’t think, by the white settlers because they had this oral tradition of seeing the Dutch from 100 years before. So, it wasn’t like they weren’t shocked. But at the same time, I don’t think they expected what came next. You see, they weren’t shocked.

Theresa: It’s like if I heard a story handed down from my great, maybe even great-great grandmother, grandfather, it’s just going to be lore. I’m going to be like, oh my gosh, they actually did have.

Angie: I think I would have done the same thing, like, oh, this is just something my crazy granddad said, right? Like, that makes sense to me. But for all the sources I could find, the Indigenous people were not in awe when the ships arrived. It was just like, oh, hey, here they are. Like, we’ve seen these ships before.

Theresa: I think that really goes to show that they took a lot more stock and put more value in the things that their family members told them. Probably.

Angie: I would agree with you. So, Tairna Noor was likely born in 1800. It’s believed that she was a member of the Toming Jean clan, this clan, and at least seven other clans in the Northwestern region would form something called the Northwest Nation. They’re a maritime group, and they rely heavily on the coastal resources. Now, while the rest of these clans move up and down the coast, sort of following the seasons, her specific clans sent most of the time at Table Cape. This is a peninsula in the Northwest region, and they call their home Trawuna.

I have reason to believe that the difference of the names from Mutruida to Trawuna is simply a difference in tribal language and dialect. Like, one group called this, one group called that, but I can’t find any concrete evidence to confirm that. But that’s my understanding because there’s no, like, I really want to define, like, what was the first nation, like, what was the first nation name, but I’ve continually given these two.

So, I think it’s just a difference in language. So, there’s not a ton of information about the Indigenous, religious, or spiritual beliefs and practices at the time because colonizers are nothing if not consistent, and they didn’t record anything. But what we do know is, um, Ochre, the natural clay earthy, right? Okay, so that’s super sacred to her people, but they don’t have a ton of access to it in the region where they stay most of the time. So, I think that’s why they build a relationship with these other North Nation clans, who they have access to it and they want it, right? So, one side wants it, one side has it. So, they work out this relationship where they can acquire what they need, while meanwhile offering passage to an area called the Robbins Island, which other clans would use to access for hunting and gathering and things like that. So, they’re sort of trading their resources.

Event space for Ochre. Yeah, pretty much. Okay. Right. And if for whatever reason, the her people didn’t want to share the event space, they just didn’t offer safe passage. So, it sort of worked out really well for everybody.

Theresa: Yeah, we’re not taking reservations during this time. I’m sorry, you should have thought about this five lunar cycles before.

Angie: Exactly. So, Tana and Nora would have been a child in the last years of this traditional lifestyle, but they didn’t know that. They assumed, I think, for all intense purposes that these colonizers were going to come in and live very similarly to how the whalers and the sealers were living, which was this, hey, thanks, we’ll just drive by sort of, you know, just stopping through the drive-thru kind of thing, like we’re not really trying to put down routes here.

Theresa: Well, and who’s going to believe that their whole way of life is going to be uprooted? Right.

Angie: When you have no precedence to base that on, and honestly, you’re right. Like, did any indigenous tribe think that when they went and met the white men? No, because white men are awful. We trade beads and things for your 700,000 acres.

Like, don’t get me started. Anyway, as I mentioned, these whalers and the seal hunters, they’re using these islands as sort of a jumping off point for expeditions. They would trade in silks, tobacco, flour, and tea because they want the indigenous kangaroo skins.

Oh, which is wild to me, but there you have it. And this works really well for the natives, as well as the sailors, because they make no claim to the land, and they just come and go, like I said, it was literally like a stop and go for them. But they would be known to steal or kidnap women from the Northwest Nation for any number of reasons that you can think of. And our girl was in fact one of these stolen women. It’s believed that she was taken before 1825, and she was held for years against her will. However, that time was not all lost because while in the company of the English, she learned two really crucial things.

The first was English, and the second was how to operate or get a gun. So during her time in enslavement, the colonists come and they clear the island of her home for sheep grazing, which is evidently still very prevalent there today. I did not know that until my Australian friend confirmed that.

Theresa: A boots a burger thing over there and

Angie: right, I was like, oh yeah, okay, that makes sense. But I had not really, like it never crossed my mind before. You can imagine that this clearing of her ancestral land did not sit well with her people. And so this almost immediately brings conflict between the white settlers and the clans who have lived in the region for generations. The Alice obscure article quotes the book, unruly figures, 20 tales of rebels, rule breakers and revolutionaries.

You’ve probably never heard of. And they say, quote, European observers later documented that colonists would shoot Aborigines whenever they found them leaving the clans no option but to defend their homes with violence. Individual skirmishes escalated into the black war by the 1820s. Right.

By 28, Tana nor escapes enslavement and would become a leader of her people. So I’m going to try really hard to pronounce this group. They’re called the player Hiki Hill plur. This clan’s living around emu bay, which is in the southeast of tablecape where her childhood home was.

There is a bit of a discrepancy about her being in this clan as opposed to the clan for birth, but it’s likely that because so many clansmen had been, you know, removed from the census with now the years of colonial violence that these were a people, they were a collection of people from many clans to make up one. That’s the general understanding.

Theresa: You know, that makes a ton of sense too. Right.

Angie: So our girl gets to work like immediately and begins teaching her people how to use firearms and defense against the colonists. She would teach them to fire when the colonists were loading.

So between shots because there’s that like really crucial second where you can, yeah, they’re a bit distracted, right? They were taught to kill the sheep and the steers of the colonists as well. So they’re just making a general decence. One of the things that she was known for during the kerfuffles with the settlers was to stand on the hill above and give orders to her men to attack the stockman and then just dare the stockman to come out of their huts. Oh, I love that. I love that. She would tell them, we’ll spare you if you come out. And I think that’s just delightful. I’m not entirely sure she ever actually spared them at all. And honestly, what are you gonna do?

You know, I mean, right. Now, unfortunately, about this time, the indigenous clans also start infighting with each other. There is limited food and supplies. And of course, there’s always a power struggle, right? She’s challenged by others who are aspiring to be clan leaders. A tenor escapes to Port Surreal on the northern coast with at least three of her siblings, at least one brother and two sisters. And there is a belief that some of those that escaped with her, the the sailors had enslaved with her as well. So she wasn’t the only member of her family to be taken.

Okay, and to be freed as well. So now at this point, I tell you something that may seem obvious, but I feel like it’s really important to a story. We really only know of her because of a man called George Augustus Robinson. He is a builder and a preacher.

And the lieutenant governor, a man called George Arthur, hires him because he wants to bring peace to the region. Now, these two guys, they’re they’re English. And they are, quote, heavily influenced by their evangelical beliefs and the anti slavery discourse that is currently sweeping the British Empire. They firmly believe that the indigenous are their brothers in Christ and should be saved from the destruction by the colonists. But as you can imagine, it’s a little too late for that because the indigenous population has already been reduced to about 1000 from anywhere from six to 10,000 who had previously lived in the region.

So it’s a little too late, but thanks for thanks for thinking of us, I guess. Conflicts, like by this point, most of the people had given up on peace, both the settlers and the indigenous. So they’re kind of looking at these guys like, okay, yeah, daylight and a dollar short.

Theresa: Yeah.

Angie: Like I said, the reason we know any of this is because of Robinson, who keeps detailed accounts of what’s going on. The Alps of Stura article says that he quote was more or less on the side of the clans who were being slaughtered. And when I read that, I started to wonder, what does more or less mean in this scenario?

Theresa: I have a family because they’re putting up a resistance, but it’s not a very solid one. And so I mean, they are being slaughtered, they are putting up the fight, more or less slaughtered. I mean, I’m translating it. Yeah.

Angie: So I did, I found a couple of sources specifically on him. I didn’t want to give too much of a story time to him. But basic just is he came for with good intentions and with great ideas. But over time, he got a little bit jaded and was just kind of there for the money. It seems that his, his, his feelings had transitioned a little bit, but for the most part, he was on the clan side. He just sort of changed why, if that makes sense. He did believe that relocating the indigenous to missions or reservations on an area called Swan Island, which is just off the North Coast, was the best idea. You know, because he saw how the US government treatment of Native Americans was working.

Theresa: I, but okay, I working is not the word I’d, I’d have used, but all right.

Angie: I agree with you. Holy. And I was like, buddy, miss the mark on that one. But okay. Robinson did negotiate for the colonists to return the land they had taken and told them to stop killing the kangaroos for sport because the kangaroos were like the lifeblood substance for the clients people. So like, could you maybe stop?

Theresa: I’ve never understood slaughter for sport.

Angie: Me either. And evidently, he saw this very quickly and was like, this is problematic. Like if they can’t get to the coastal region, this is what they eat. This is how they survive.

Like get it together, people. In fact, the Alice Obscura gives us a glimpse into his journal where Robinson writes quote, aboriginal children have witnessed the massacre of their parents and their relations carried away into captivity by the merciless invaders. Their country has been taken for them and their kangaroos, their chief sustenance had been slaughtered wholesale for the sake of paltry loose.

Can we wonder then at the hatred they bear to the white inhabitants, we should make some atonement for the misery we have entailed upon the original perpetrators of this land, the original proprietors of this land. These notes were later sent to then King William IV, but they were not published until 1966. Okay, that drove me nuts. On September 20th, 1830, Tereninor’s clan started hunting rather stalking Robinson, near the Rubikron River. By this point, he had heard of her and her people and he knew what they were capable of. He was hoping to capture them, but he was scared they were out too often, so he just didn’t try it all and kind of went on his merry way. Within 10 days, his trip around the island was done and he avoided them entirely.

Like that was his goal, he succeeded. But by December of 1830, Tereninor was captured and taken to Swan Island. This is where Robinson had set up the quote reservations. She had originally been seized by sailors and taken to an island in Bastrait, but she refused to work for them and then she tried to kill them while they were out sailing one day. And it just so happens that one of the other men, like in his own vessel, a man called James Parrish, who would eventually become Robinson’s coxswain. Do you know what a coxswain is? Isn’t that the dude with the whistle? I think so. It’s basically like his right hand man. Like he would have been the one steering the ship. Like a first aid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Theresa: So we had them kind of with the Lafitte pirates. Yeah. Yeah.

Angie: Him and Robinson, they immediately work stuff out, figure stuff out, and he becomes this man for Robinson’s company for his goals here. He says, this James Parrish fellow, that he got there just in time to save the sealers from Tereninor’s revenge. And with no other help, single-handedly took her away from them.

Theresa: I automatically called BS. This sounds way too sensationalized.

Angie: Yeah. That’s what I said. And that’s kind of what everybody else says too. They said the sealers were happy to give her up. What I read that it reminded me of when Caesar was kidnapped and he told the pirates to demand a higher ransom.

Yeah. I imagine the pirates were like, please go home. I’m over you.

And Parrish’s story lacks credibility to say that he showed up with another ship and just saved these men from one woman bent on the sealers death single-handedly. It seems sus, right? A little bit.

Theresa: I’d want some more sources to back him up. Right.

Angie: And there are none. So it’s just word of mouth. That’s what I did. So, okay, there you go. Once Tereninor arrived on Swan Island, she wasn’t immediately identified and Robinson hadn’t met her yet, but eventually she was given away by her dog Whiskey and other women. Like, I don’t know if in there demeanor towards her or if they said her name, but either way they give her up and so Robinson figures out that it’s her. And I’m just, please allow me to give you this quote from the article showing the duality of this man. Quote, when he realized who the sealers had captured, Robinson recorded it as a most fortunate thing that this woman is apprehended and stopped in her murderous career.

The dire atrocity she would have occasioned would be the most dreadful that can possibly be conceived. Huh, okay. Right?

You know, we’ll just leave that there. She almost immediately begins stirring the pot of dissent, saying that she knew that Robinson was going to be bringing soldiers in to either kill everyone or jail everyone. And naturally, this creates a huge mess, especially when you consider that Robinson had literally promised the people living on Swann Island that they would be safe there. So she is just sowing the seeds, right? In a bid to maintain some type of order, Robinson sends her away as quick as he possibly can. Terin and Orr is then forced to travel with Perish, the other fellow, the, you know, the sensationalized one, while he searches for more women whom he thought might be hiding in the Bay Strait Islands.

But our girl would not back down. And in December of 1830, she goes back to Swann Island. She sets out to rile everyone up and does it within just a few hours by repeated warnings that, quote, white people intended shooting them. When Robinson tried to confront her, she is said to have replied with, I like Ludewin, the white man. So I think Ludewin is their indigenous word for those. As much as a black snake. Oh, love this for her. Yeah. Just say it like it is, honey. And what’s another thing colonizers are good at?

Theresa: I mean, I see.

Angie: Oh, yeah, right. So we’re not just colonizing, we’re also bringing disease. By this time influenza and other diseases are ripping their way through the settlement and Terin and Orr could finally be stopped. Her death would come at the hand of disease while in some type of confinement in what can only be described as a prison in either May of 1831 or June 5th of the same year. She was likely buried in one of the graves on the island.

Like I said before, we know little about the traditional rituals of her people, but she should have either been cremated or buried in the soft sands on the beach, but she was probably not put to rest in this fashion. And that got me thinking about religions like agency and what that means for peace after death. But that is absolutely not a topic for right now. But it totally made me think about that. It’s pretty clear that Robinson was totally relieved when Terin and Orr died. There were a lot of her people that resisted the oppression, but he blamed her for most, if not all the problems they caused. Her death was the beginning of the end of the Black War and really the rest of traditional life that they were fighting for. It’s reported that several small groups, like basically what was left of the original plans of the North and the Northeast nations, they surrendered to Robinson in like a series.

And after January of 1832, there were no more reports of violence between the two groups. At minimum, a thousand lives were lost during a time called the Black War, roughly 225 colonists and a range of 600 to 900 Tasmanian Aboriginal people. By 35, Robinson reports that the entire Indigenous population had been moved to various island missions and prisons that had been established while the colonists had occasionally called for the military to quote, kill, destroy, and if possible exterminate every Aboriginal person in Tasmania. That being said, some did survive the war. And as of 2016, more than 23,000 Tasmanians identify as Aboriginal and their culture is experiencing a resurgence, which is awesome.

But there are so very few of them because there were so few of them to begin with and colonists had to do what they do best. She was definitely a force to be reckoned with, even though her people ultimately lost their battle. As of 23, discussions have begun to commission an Aboriginal artist to create a monument to the lives lost.

There is currently no memorial standing, but they are working on it. I think this story was important because all we know, like first of all, we don’t know, right? But all we know from her came from the side of the colonizer. And it had to me the reverse effect as the photographer and the adjoining woman. I wanted him to be the hero and he is often called the protector of the Aborigines, but I just have such a hard time truly believing that. Him compared to the French photographer seemed like such completely different situations. It’s a similar type of framing because that’s where we got the information from. You know?

Theresa: Angie is comparing it back. So she’s alluded to one thing and I want to make sure we circle back because if this is your first time tuning in, you may not know what Angie is talking about. So we covered the French-Algerian war a couple episodes back and it was Episode 101 and there was just women were rounded up in these recruitment villages and awful things happened because it was a concentration camp and a French photographer or a French soldier who was the photographer took some stunning pictures of them and he did it as an act of protest and it’s for many of them the only image they have. But if you’re interested in that one, that was Episode 101. I’m not going to admit anything. It’s a fabulous episode.

Angie: But I thought it was an interesting way to compare the framing of a story because he did such wonderful work with his photographs and my guy took some really meticulous, fabulous notes but did not do great practical work with them. Right.

Theresa: I mean, I think there’s something to be said about that, you know, where you have a thing that you’re doing but it’s very performative. Yeah. Versus actually doing the work. Yeah.

Angie: Yeah, and I think that’s the main difference between the two and that’s the story of Tarnanor, the freedom fighter of Tasmania.

Theresa: I love that you brought somebody that I’ve never heard of and I now have a new hero. Right.

Angie: I’m sad to say I don’t have any artwork to show you of her. There wasn’t any, there’s like sketches and drawings of what they think she could have looked like but that’s as close to close to what you’re going to get. Right. I do apologize, I don’t have any artwork.

Theresa: Well, not a problem. We can easily tip it and I can tell you my story. Love this. Because I do have pictures for mine and artwork. Love this. Okay. So, I probably stole a story from your list. Do you know who Camille Clodell is?

Angie: The name sounds familiar but I can’t say I know it off the top. Like I couldn’t put a story to it at the present moment. Give me some details.

Theresa: Okay. My sources, art.net, lost Camille Clodell, masterpiece sells for 3.8 million at auction by Joe Lawson-Tancrede. Washington Post, her tragic story eclipsed her art. This show restores the dazzle by Sebastian Smee, the National Museum of Women Artist, Camille Clodell, the Musée Rodin, which is the Rodin Museum in France. Like they have a website, Clamille Clodell, the podcast Modern Art Notes, Clamille Clodell, the

Angie: podcast

Theresa: name for this one cracks me up, Baroque Bitches.

Angie: Baroque, don’t fix it.

Theresa: Oh my gosh, that’s awesome. An episode, Clamille Clodell, it’s complicated. Okay. Okay. So, she is born in Northern France and I didn’t put this in my notes because I’m like, oh, I’ll just remember it.

I’ll write it down later and I didn’t. But she ends up doing some sculpture work as a child. Child. And her parents are like, oh, I mean, this is kind of good, I guess. And they ask their neighbor who’s a sculptor, like, is this any good? Like it looks good to us, but we’re parents, so bias is the thing.

And he’s like, oh no, that’s really good. And so they decide to do the thing where they support their child protege. Is that what I’m looking for? Protege is not the word I’m looking for.

No, no. Protege. Thank you. Thank you.

And so the family uproots and moves to Paris around 1881, all around the child. Now she goes on to be recognized for both her artistic talent and the fact that she is quite the looker.

Angie: She’s who I think she is. I just recently saw photographs and was like, she’s pretty.

Theresa: So she starts studying sculpture at the Academy Colourasi, but through that, she studied an independent studio where a dude named Alfred Butcher taught. And I’m sure that that name is important to many people. Then she has this encounter with this well-known artist named Rodin. And she began working in a studio in 1884. Now she’s extremely talented.

She’s very committed because she’s been doing this since she was me hide at Grasshopper. And she starts working as Rodin’s apprentice. And she had the chance to study as a woman in the late 1800s, nude figures and anatomy. Now this is incredibly unusual for women at that time.

And it isn’t long before she evolves from being his student to someone that the writer Mathias Mortar describes as a wise and discerning collaborator whom the teacher consulted on everything. Love this. Yeah. Now it’s 1888. Rodin recognizes this young woman’s talent. He’s recognized it from the start. He also falls hopelessly in love with her. She’s 18. He’s 42. Right then. Okay.

Angie: To say that these two… Isn’t he also married? Yes. D- You know, semantics I guess.

Theresa: They have a complicated love story. Okay. And it has inspired some extremely overly romanticized interpretations. There are letters that survive that they exchanged that you hear the passion Rodin felt early on in the relationship and you see the reserve that is shown by the woman he soon calls La Moselle C. Okay. Now she has some financial difficulties which he kind of talks about in his letters to her. Her flirtatiousness and her painful obsession with her work as a sculptress.

Okay. So he sees all of her. Blasenall. Now…

I’m here for it. Around this time she moves out of her parents’ home and into an apartment. It’s small.

It’s described as Spartan and it’s rented for her by Rodin. As you do. I mean, you’ve got to set your own… Your side piece up with a place to live, right? So you’re not sneaking into her parents’ house. I mean, just seems logical.

Angie: I feel like that’s such a story. Like, how many times we heard the gentleman set the lady up in a hotel in all expenses paid like… Yeah. Yeah.

Theresa: And she’s assisting him on his projects simultaneously while she’s working on her own stuff. Okay. Which I love because apparently these sculptures take quite some time. I think I knew that if you would have asked me how long do you think it takes to make a sculpture, I wouldn’t have given you an answer. Yeah. But apparently it’s years. It makes sense.

Depending on the work. And it’s like, oh yeah, okay, I see it. But they have this intense love affair and it’s consuming their personal and professional lives. I mean, he rented her house.

So I mean, he knows where she lives and probably has his own key. They work together. Like, there is no breathing space when you have somebody committed to this art form. And this kind of fuels both of their inspiration. They end up, like all of their work is said to, and I’m not an art historian, function as these declarations, criticisms or echoes of one another’s work. Like they’re just in this feedback loop.

Angie: So they’re always in conversation. Yeah.

Theresa: Even with what they’re creating. Rodin modeled several portraits during this period, including Clamiel Claudel’s short hair, which is his first portrait of Claudel, the mask of Clamiel Claudel. And those both are exhibited. Exhibited? Exhibited.

Angie: In 1900. You know, honestly, I don’t think it was exhibited. I haven’t had enough coffee and I walk that fine line between the Olympic-sized swimming pool, which is too much and the not enough. The middle ground is still being worked on. I understand this.

Theresa: Rodin is working a lot on these pieces around Claudel. And he’s doing it in a way to try to describe how passionately he feels for her. Meanwhile, it’s 1884. She’s kind of feeling like maybe she needs to take a step back. Like she’s feeling a bit overwhelmed with these love-bombing. And so she decides to put some distance between her and Rodin. And so she takes refuge in England at this person, Jesse Lipscomb’s home.

I didn’t research more about who Jesse Lipscomb is because it’s literally the only image I have and I just figured I’ve got enough notes already. So she returns in September. Rodin is happy to see her again. And she gets him to sign this contract in which he promises that she’s going to be his only pupil and he swears faithfulness to her, which is interesting because again, he is married.

Angie: See how this worked the first time, right Camille?

Theresa: Yeah. I mean, look, we’ve all maybe been in those relationships or seen friends go through those relationships. We’re like, no, I got him to swear fidelity to me. It’s like, girl, he’s married. Like he might have said that before, but I mean, there is somebody waiting in his bed at home.

Angie: Like where he signed the mortgage. Yeah.

Theresa: Like he’s paying rent for you. He’s paying mortgage for her. Yeah. Like that is a stunning. Paradise. Now it’s during this period that they have happiness and shared passion that comes abruptly to an end because apparently it takes more than a signed contract.

Angie: That’s wild. Didn’t see that coming.

Theresa: And during this tumultuous breakup, it’s 1889, Rodin travels all around the region of more names in France. I’m going to butcher. Touraine and visiting chateaus and cathedrals. And during the following year, he settles in Chateau des Sillettes.

Angie: It’s I like watching you say that.

Theresa: My mouth just like contorted as I tried to figure out which letters I’m going to omit in the pronunciation and just the acrobatic. Thanks. Camille, she accompanies him for part of this up until October of 1881 because what’s a breakup if it’s not going to be completely cut off, you know, a clean break. And that’s when he returns to Paris and he decides to do this to be nearer to her that he rents a dilapidated 18th century mansion like you do.

Angie: No one’s ever rented a dilapidated 18th century mansion next door for me.

Theresa: I had to talk to my husband.

Theresa: You’ve got to go work on bigger flanks. That’s what needs to happen. And you need to live in a place where there are 18th century mansions dilapidated or upkept.

Angie: That’s maybe that’s what the problem is. It’s locale. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I’ll ask him.

Theresa: As this is all going on, she is flipping her dynamic with him and she had created this bus called the bust of Rodin and it becomes her most famous, most frequently exhibited portrait. It’s got a heavily impressionistic finish that scatters light. I stole this quote and subtly dermatitis is Rodin’s meaty brow, sunken eye sockets and boxer’s nose. And like the details on this brosbeard are incredible.

I love this. And this is really interesting because now she’s getting quite the following of her own on her own accord. Now, as all this is going on because it’s complicated, Rodin’s refusing to leave his wife and this enrages Clodell. But she broke up with him. They’re kind of on again off again. I mean, they were on a break. If he rents a mansion to be nearer to her, something tells me she’s opening the door to her apartment occasionally.

Angie: How much money does this man have that he can have a mortgage and a little apartment and dilapidated mansion? I think the dollar is further back.

Theresa: Not in this economy. Not in this economy. You know, I’m irritated by this

Angie: and the lack of 17th or 18th century mansions in my city. Go do something about it. Would you?

Theresa: Now, she’s so upset by him not leaving his wife that she expresses her anger in probably the best way. This is also why you don’t marry an author. She puts it into caricatures of the couple, the married couple that she creates. Love this for her. Now, he’s kind of alarmed with this sudden change of events and he begins to avoid her, although he still loves her, still loves her. And he resettles in 1893.

Now. She’s meanwhile doing these very nuanced portrayals of human form and these result in sculptures that the state and press censor as overly sensual and appropriate. I don’t think they would be if she was a clot.

Right. You know, like I think it’s literally just sex because she shouldn’t have been able to study the male form and now she is showing an atomically correct penis. And so she’s needing to like do things like put loincloths in certain areas to cover genitalia so that she doesn’t offend the modesty of the viewers had they known that a woman created this very lifelike thing. But it’s okay for a man to do it. Look, I’m not going to say I don’t know so much in the mores of this time.

Period in France. I’m I have strong assumptions and they’re going to ooze out of my pores during the telling of this, but I’m going to pull my punch on this one. Good.

Angie: Okay. I’ll allow it. Thank you.

Theresa: You’re welcome. Now she spent years being associated with Rodin and in theory that didn’t hurt, but now it’s coming to bite her in the ass. He’s known as the most innovative sculpture of the 19th century and that part kind of helps her career.

She learns a ton in the studio and she’s given a ton of access to the network of sculptors and critics and that part is really neat. But as the relationship unravels, this association becomes white the albatross around her neck because he’s made promises to Clodell and but he’s not leaving his partner and I did mention there’s probably also maybe an abortion that happens that Clodell has because of it. So there’s it’s it’s that it’s messy. This this relationship that she has with Rodin kind of poisons the well because everyone’s like, oh, it’s just that just looks like his work.

It looks like a knockoff. Right. And so now she’s having the full weight of all of these blows one by one. She completes a series of pieces and she’s doing basically anything that she thinks will sell because she’s desperate for money and she’s trying to think about how she can come up with something novel that the market’s going to support so that she can afford her lifestyle.

Angie: Right Spartan apartment next to a destitute. Gotcha. Okay.

Theresa: Okay. Now it’s around this time she starts working on this piece called the Age of Maturity and in it there’s three figures. You have a young woman who is on her knees and she’s reaching for a man who is middle age and he is being pulled away by an old shrouded woman.

The older woman is said to represent time but it’s still incredibly telling that we have this young female artist at the end of the chaotic relationship married with a married older man and that she’s going to create the statue. Like so this is part of that feedback loop of being able to express feelings. Now we’re November of 19. Nope. November of 1898. The French state apparently they have seen the statue. They’re envisioning of bronzing it and there’s apparently this whole process around it. I can’t say I fully understand why there needs to be a committee around bronzing a statue.

But in June of 1899 the plaster version is shown to the Société National des Beaux-Arts and her ex-Rodin is on the committee to approve or disprove the piece and strangely it’s not approved to be cast. Hmm. Weird. Didn’t see that coming.

Yeah. I mean you know maybe my breakup letter isn’t going to be published either. The work is again refused at the 1900 universal exposition and Rodin is sometimes accused of being played in a role that would reject her work. And that could be the case. We don’t really know because he reportedly never sought to prevent the age maturity from being exhibited.

Angie: Okay. Well that’s I guess decent of him. Yeah.

Theresa: So he’s never outright attributed to this but Cladelle she’s kind of big in her feels and she’s convinced that he’s the cause of her problems. So she leaves this society in 1900. She’s like peace out F you guys. I’m going home. Right. I’m taking my toys.

I’m going home. Now the fact that she’s not awarded this commission from the French state increased her paranoia in regard to Rodin. And she nicknames him the ferret which I love the pettiness. I am here for it. I have been her. And she believes that it’s Rodin’s influence that is the reason every time she encounters failure. Okay. She might be mistaken because 1880 1895 Rodin backed by the art critic Goose of Jeffrey attempts to obtain a government commission for a marble of.

I heard this had so many times in the podcast I’m about to butcher it. So come Tala which won the salon prize in 1888 but he’s unsuccessful in doing that. Cladelle could nevertheless count upon the support of several private pages that she’s obtained throughout her work.

Mathias more hard who we heard the quote from earlier Leon Guche’s and occasionally there is some discreet assistance from Rodin who paid rent for her studio in 1904. So he still has feelings and he’s doing it on the down low. I don’t think she knows about it. Our girl is also doing work for the Rothschild’s captain to see a and commissioned a broad who commissioned a broad cast at the age of maturity and especially there’s a woman named Countess Day Mike Mike Gret. I’m butchering all of these names. And she’s done several portraits of all of these especially there’s one I’ll have a picture of this for you later of Perseus and the Gorgon.

Oh that’s awesome. Which is really neat to see her work seemed to indicate that she’s got this waning inspiration. I mean she’s just probably feeling pretty down in the dumps. And she’s known around this time to refuse to do some of her previous compositions. She’s just big in her field.

You cannot pay her to do it. She’s just having a tough go. And it’s around this time she starts showing signs of what is called systematized persecution delirium as her medical records bladed out and she starts to destroy her works. It makes me sad. In 1913 it’s shortly after the time her father dies. She’s admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Okay. And in July of that year. Clodell is leading a life of her. Well so I’m assuming she’s leading up to that.

I wrote this out poorly. She’s leading life of her accrues and her studio and she’s when she’s committed to the asylum that her families request. She’s transferred the following year to a different psychiatric hospital and she remains there until her death in 1943.

My God. Now the medical records that have the chronology of her life. Talk about how full her life is in 1913 and then things dramatically drop off. Some years are omitted entirely presumably because there’s nothing of record that happens to her. And either medical records.

Medical records. We’re the only partners we have are nothing. Living. Yeah.

Unless we tell you otherwise. Got it. There’s other years where the only entry is CC receives, receives visit from Paul, her brother. He only visits like a handful of times during the 15 years that she’s there. Okay.

And he is a career diplomat who in 1926 became Francis ambassador to the U.S. And when he’s in that role 15 years after his sister’s hospital hospitalization starts, he gave a speech at the opening of Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum. So that seems kind of a holy.

Angie: Yeah. Little bit. Unless is her work going to be shown there? Like is he doing it out of care to her? But it feels very.

Theresa: You put me in a home and then you go open a museum for my ex? Yeah. Exactly how it feels. So she’s there 30 years. And it’s when 1913 when she’s committed Rodin, his health is starting to fail because again, he’s like years her senior.

War breaks out and he’s no longer in a position of influence because World War One. He never forgets her and he he used to send her money through one of her patrons, Matthias Morthard. And it’s at this his suggestion that Rodin decides to include exhibition space reserved exclusively for Camille Resel’s art in the future.

He’s hoping that the museum is going to house her collections that he bequeathed to the French state. That’s cool. His request is not honored until 1952.

That is not cool. And it’s during that time that her brother, Paul, donates four major works from his sister by the museum or to the museum. I don’t like Paul. I mean, Paul is consistent.

We’ll give him that. OK. Now, so I could have wrapped it up there, but February 18th, 1925, ArtNet published a piece about how there was a lost bronze sculpture that was found and it went up for auction. The bronze sculpture was titled The Age of Maturity.

OK. Now this is the statue she’d worked on for six years. And in it, you have a woman who is, youth is personified by this young woman on her knees reaching out and then you have maturity personified by a man. It’s tempting to view this work has been informed by her feelings for Rodin and how would you not?

It’s also suggested by art critics that the woman representing old age and leading the maturing man away might have been modeled on Rodin’s wife. You don’t say. Surprise, surprise. In any case, it struck a nerve when Rodin first saw it in 1899. And until that time, he had been supporting Claudel publicly.

Because she had also tried to struggle to really find her own financial independence. But after he sees the statue, he cuts her off completely. Right then. Now the sculpture was discovered in an abandoned apartment in Paris. It was one of only four that had been made. And when it went up for auction, it sold for 3.6 million euro.

Angie: So can we assume that the one they found, you said it was bronzed? Was it the one that her benefactor, Matthias, had dipped or whatever?

Theresa: I mean, I think that because they, I think they do a cast and then they bronze that. Okay, that makes sense. And so it was only one of four that was done. Got it. I say that out loud and I realize how little I know and how much I absolutely made up.

Let the stress either way. I mean, could you imagine you walk into an a first off, a band and apartments in Paris that had been empty for decades. Would love nothing more. And then to find big ass sculptures.

Angie: Have you seen the abandoned apartment that there so there was an okay, I’ll have to. Never mind. I’ll shut up. Thank you. Would you? Yes. But I have pictures. I’m so excited. Is anyone in this picture her? Is she a woman? I believe that’s her. Okay. Okay. Wow. They are ginormous sculptures. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. Right. They are life-sized statues.

Theresa: And like you see the one thing they talk about is how she was using real body type. Like you see this woman has a little bit of a pooch on her. And she’s not doing the emaciated models that others would do.

Angie: Because she’s actually seen real anatomy. Right.

Theresa: But I mean, Rodin saw real anatomy and he I guess tend to do maybe more of the amazing. I say that out loud. Like I really just spent an hour looking at his work. Like I know what I’m talking.

I’m shutting up. I love you. But that’s another. She is gorgeous. And then that is her worker underneath. So you kind of see, but you can kind of see more of that. I don’t know if that’s her worker. I say that out loud like I know I’m talking about, but you just see the detail in that smaller bust. This is Perseus and the Gorgon. Perseus. That’s awesome. But you see how they had to, you know, do some sort of drapery over his genitalia. Because it’s correct.

Angie: Right. And then. And women aren’t supposed to know what correct genitalia look like. No, for heavens. That’s beautiful.

Theresa: And then this is the age of maturity. So you see her with her hands outstretched. A man who looks surprisingly like Rodin being led away by an old hag with a shroud being caught in the wind.

Angie: I think it’s beautiful. Yeah. I’m here for petty.

Theresa: But that is the story of Clemille Claudel.

Angie: Thank you for taking. She was on the list. I had just recently added her.

Theresa: And now you can just recently remove her. I most certainly will. Or keeper. This could be.

Angie: So I have to tell you that my husband told me the other day that he’s decided he is no longer going to help us make sure the other one doesn’t do the same story because he really wants for us to do the same story one day.

Theresa: And tell him to rethink it because the times that he’s gotten to play intermediary, he’s really enjoyed it. So would you remind him of the power he has the ability to Lord over you?

Angie: I tried to say I think you’d be regretting this decision and he said why not? It would be the same story but told from two different perspectives and that could be interesting. And I was like you will regret not getting to play this part. And he said no I won’t because I’ll just text Teresa my ideas. Maybe they will get done faster than you. And I informed him that he will regret sleeping on the couch later.

Theresa: So the go find me that you and favorite couch is.

Angie: If you’ve enjoyed this, if you’ve enjoyed the banter, the coverage of people that you may or may not have known about. I mean do you have any Tasmanian heroes on your deck?

Because now you do. We’re here for it. Honestly, we know there’s a lot more of you listening as of late. If you’re able to rate us particularly on Apple podcast, it’s super helpful. We greatly appreciate it. And if 1% of you listening on Apple actually submitted one of those things, it would be dramatic. So we see you. And on that note, goodbye. Bye.