In 1903 the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers asked Rodin to design a bronze memorial to James McNeill Whistler. Rodin's model was Gwen John, who became his lover while the monument was under way. It was never completed, although a full scale plaster and several smaller studies survive. This is a modern cast from a plaster head of about 1906 in the Musée Rodin in Paris.