Focus on Iris, Messenger of the Gods and explain the Description.
The original sculpture depicted the Greek goddess Iris as a woman, with sweeping wings, and legs spread wide.  The pose recalls the uncompromising painting L'Origine du monde (1866) by Gustave Courbet (held in a private collection and still little unknown in 1890, but Rodin may have become acquainted with it through Edmond de Goncourt: Courbet's work gained wider exposure after being acquired by the Musée d'Orsay in 1981).  It also evokes the athleticism of a gymnast or dancer stretching.  The sculpture was probably from life, with the model lying on a bed or perhaps based on a can-can dancer.  Indeed, it may be inspired by Rodin's clipping of the Chahut dancer "Grille d'Egout" from an 1891 issue of the Gil Blas magazine.
A small early study of Iris retains the head.  The sculpture was altered in 1894, when it was enlarged by Rodin's assistant Henri Lebossé and reoriented vertically, with the left arm and head removed leaving a fragmentary torso similar to that of a damaged statue from Classical antiquity.  It was catalogued as Study of a woman with legs apart in November 1894, and then cast in bronze at the Rudier Foundry.  A full-size cast held by the Musée Rodin measures 82.7 cm × 69 cm × 63 cm (32.6 in × 27.2 in × 24.8 in).
A cast was exhibited at the Sixth Munich Secession exhibition in 1898, and then, under the title Another Voice, at Rodin's retrospective in a temporary pavilion at the Place de l'Alma during the Exposition Universelle in 1900.  The work was initially very controversial due to its unabashed eroticism, so it was retained in Rodin's studio.  A cast owned by Edward Perry Warren was donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1908, but the museum felt unable to exhibit the "unshowable" work, and sold it in 1953.  (Warren collected other controversial artworks:  he also owned the Warren Cup, and his donation of a stone version of Rodin's The Kiss to the local council in Lewes was returned as being unsuitable for public display.)  The Victoria and Albert Museum accepted the artist's donation of an early cast in 1914, cataloguing it as "Crouching Woman". Today, the official copies of the sculpture are kept in museums of Oslo, Zurich, Paris, Washington, Basel, New York, Los Angeles and Adelaide.Iris has been described by the art historian Jane Mayo Roos as "open[ing] her thighs in a pose of candid, aggressive sexuality".  The critic Arthur Symons wrote that "All the force of the muscle palpitates in this strenuous flesh, the whole splendour of her sex, unveiled, palpitates in the air, the messenger of the gods, bringing some divine message, pauses in flight, an embodied inspiration". The sculpture has also drawn feminist criticism given Iris' sexually objectifying pose. In particular, the title of the pose suggests that the figure's sexual organ is her means of verbal communication. By removing them and repositioning the legs into their current confrontational pose, Rodin erases any sense of individualism in favor of anonymous carnality.
Rudier Foundry Edmond de Goncourt Henri Lebossé Munich Secession Musée d'Orsay Chahut objectifying Musée Rodin Edward Perry Warren Jane Mayo Roos Gil Blas Crouching Woman L'Origine du monde Arthur Symons Exposition Universelle Gustave Courbet Warren Cup The Kiss Greek goddess Iris Victoria and Albert Museum feminist can-can Place de l'Alma Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Lewes