Why was Auguste Rodin accused of making The Age of Bronze from a living person?

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Portrait of Auguste Rodin standing indoors, wearing a buttoned, two-toned coat with a full beard and tousled hair, looking slightly to the side. — Auguste Rodin French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Auguste Rodin was accused of forming the mold for his 1877 sculpture The Age of Bronze directly upon a living person because of its extreme realism.1

The work’s lifelike quality contrasted so sharply with the statues produced by Rodin’s contemporaries that critics found it difficult to believe the figure had been sculpted without using a live model as a mold. This naturalism was a hallmark of Rodin’s evolving style, which sought to move away from the rigid academic standards of the time to capture the expressive, basic movements of life.12