The last place Camille Claudel lived and worked — a very small studio at the back of the courtyard of the Hôtel de Jassaud on the Île Saint-Louis, from January 1899 until she was committed in 1913. The building stands and carries a plaque; the studio is private.
In January 1899 Camille Claudel moved into the Hôtel de Jassaud at 19 quai de Bourbon, on the northern quay of the Île Saint-Louis. It was her last address. She lived and worked here for fourteen years.
The City of Paris describes the workspace precisely: a very small studio, hidden at the back of the building's courtyard. That is the physical fact this page is built on, and it is worth sitting with — the sculptor of The Waltz and The Age of Maturity spent her final working years in a cramped room behind a courtyard on an island, increasingly isolated, increasingly poor.
She had been Auguste Rodin's student, model and collaborator, and by this point the relationship was long over. Her own work continued here for years before it stopped.
In 1913 she was committed to an asylum. She remained institutionalised for the last thirty years of her life and never sculpted again.
The building survives and is protected as a monument historique — the Ancien hôtel de Jassaud, which also carries the address 26 rue Le Regrattier round the corner. It is in private copropriété, so the studio at the back of the courtyard is not accessible. There is a commemorative plaque on the street front, and that is what a visitor sees.
The map pin here is the street entrance rather than the studio, because the studio was behind it and cannot be located separately.
Claudel moves into the Hôtel de Jassaud at 19 quai de Bourbon.
She lives and works in the small studio at the back of the courtyard, in growing isolation.
She is committed to an asylum, and never sculpts again.
At 19 quai de Bourbon on the Île Saint-Louis, in the Hôtel de Jassaud, from January 1899 until 1913. The City of Paris describes it as a very small studio hidden at the back of the building's courtyard. It was her last home and workplace.
No. The building is a protected monument historique in private copropriété, and the studio is behind the courtyard. What is visible is the street front and a commemorative plaque — which is why the map marks the entrance rather than the studio itself.
She lived and worked in the studio for fourteen years, in increasing isolation and poverty, long after her relationship with Rodin had ended. In 1913 she was committed to an asylum, where she remained for the last thirty years of her life. She never sculpted again.
The Hôtel de Jassaud occupies a corner and is recorded by the Ministry of Culture under both 19 quai de Bourbon and 26 rue Le Regrattier. Older sources may use either.
Claudel moved into the Hôtel de Jassaud in January 1899 and stayed until she was committed in 1913. The City of Paris describes her workspace as a very small studio hidden at the back of the courtyard. She never sculpted again after 1913.
The riverside table on the far side of the Île Saint-Louis — wonderful food, Madame Lecomte at the door, and a forty-five-minute wait since the Americans found it.
Visit the place
The cathedral seen at night from the wooden footbridge off the Quai de Béthune — the still point of the finest walk in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, answered a decade later from the same river in Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer.
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George Whitman's bookshop by the Seine — opened as Le Mistral in 1951, renamed Shakespeare and Company in 1964 with Sylvia Beach's blessing, and still sleeping writers among its shelves.
Visit the place
A working-class accordion dance hall in the Latin Quarter — the neighborhood danced there most nights, and the expatriate crowd borrowed it on Mondays.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
