In the past few days we’ve fea­tured a series of remark­able lit­tle films of French artists Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Mon­et and Edgar Degas. Today we wrap things up with just one more: a rare glimpse of the great sculp­tor Auguste Rodin.

The footage was tak­en in 1915, two years before Rod­in’s death. There are sev­er­al sequences. The first shows the artist at the columned entrance to an uniden­ti­fied struc­ture, fol­lowed by a brief shot of him pos­ing in a gar­den some­where. The rest of the film, begin­ning at the 53-sec­ond mark, was clear­ly shot at the pala­tial, but dilap­i­dat­ed, Hôtel Biron, which Rodin was using as a stu­dio and sec­ond home.

The man­sion was built as a pri­vate res­i­dence in the ear­ly 18th cen­tu­ry, and served as a Catholic school for girls from 1820 until about 1904, when it became ille­gal for pub­lic mon­ey to be used for reli­gious edu­ca­tion. When the last of the nuns cleared out, the rooms of the Hôtel Biron were rent­ed out to a diverse group of peo­ple that includ­ed some notable artists: Jean Cocteau, Isado­ra Dun­can, Hen­ri Matisse and Rain­er Maria Rilke, who served for a time as Rod­in’s sec­re­tary. It was Rilke’s wife, the sculp­tor Clara West­hoff Rilke, who first told Rodin about the place in 1909.

Rodin first rent­ed four rooms on the main floor, but was alarmed when he learned of plans to sell the prop­er­ty off in pieces to devel­op­ers. So he made a deal with the gov­ern­ment: In exchange for bequeath­ing all his works to the French state, the sculp­tor was allowed to occu­py the man­sion for the rest of his life, and after he died, the estate would become the Musée Rodin.

By the time actor Sacha Gui­t­ry and his cam­era­man arrived to film this scene from Ceux de Chez Nous, or “Those of Our Land,” Rodin was the sole occu­pant of the Hôtel Biron. The film shows the 74-year-old artist walk­ing down the weed-cov­ered steps of the man­sion and work­ing inside, chip­ping away at a mar­ble stat­ue with a ham­mer and chis­el. When Rodin was asked once about how he cre­at­ed his stat­ues, he said, “I choose a block of mar­ble and chop off what­ev­er I don’t need.”

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Edgar Degas was near­ly blind when this film footage was tak­en in 1915. The great French Impres­sion­ist painter had begun to lose his eye­sight in his thir­ties, when he became extreme­ly sen­si­tive to bright light and expe­ri­enced a loss of vision in his right eye. Degas devel­oped blind spots in both eyes, and by the time he was in his for­ties he had lost a sig­nif­i­cant part of his cen­tral vision.

Paint­ing was a strug­gle. The unbear­able­ness of bright light forced Degas to work indoors, and even­tu­al­ly he had to ask his mod­els for help iden­ti­fy­ing col­ors. By the time he was 57 he could no longer read. “How awful it is not being able to see clear­ly any­more,” Degas said late in his life. “I have to give up draw­ing and paint­ing and for years now con­tent myself with sculp­ture.… But if my eye­sight con­tin­ues to dim I won’t even be able to mod­el any more. What will I do with my days then?”

In 1912 Degas had to give up art alto­geth­er, and he filled his days by tak­ing long walks around Paris. When the young actor Sacha Gui­t­ry approached the retired artist about appear­ing in his film Ceux de Chez Nous, or “Those of Our Land” (we fea­tured Gui­t­ry’s footage of a severe­ly arthrit­ic Pierre-Auguste Renoir on Wednes­day and Claude Mon­et in his gar­den at Giverny yes­ter­day), Degas flat­ly refused to par­tic­i­pate. Unde­terred, Gui­t­ry became a sort of pio­neer­ing paparazzi: He set up his cam­era near Degas’s home on the Boule­vard de Clichy and wait­ed in ambush for the 81-year-old man to pass by on one of his reg­u­lar walks.

The result­ing film is brief, but fas­ci­nat­ing. The great painter strolls along with a female helper, a bowler hat on his head and a fold­ed over­coat under one arm, using an umbrel­la as a walk­ing stick. When he gets clos­er to the cam­era we can see that Degas is wear­ing the tint­ed glass­es he cus­tom­ar­i­ly used to shield what was left of his eye­sight from the harsh day­light. When the old man reach­es the edge of the frame, the wom­an’s hand takes hold of his arm, and then he’s gone.