It became Rodin's practice by the middle of his career to create reductions of his large works for commercial distribution.

This small version "Andreus de Andre", one of the six "Burghers of Calais", dates to 1900, five years after Rodin delivered his monument to Calais, the city which had ordered it in 1885. This small figure is not merely a copy: Rodin used the reduction to refine the gestures of pathos and torment embodied by "Andreus de Andre".

The details of the figure are exquisitely refined and highly tactile. Rodin planned to place the bronzes of his reductions in the treasuries of collectors. He employed special patinas and tones in the small works, experiments in colour which were not possible for outdoor, monumental sculpture.