St. John the Baptist

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This early bronze betrays the raw physical and emotional intensity that set Rodin’s work apart from conventional sculpture of his era. The saint’s gouged eyes, sunken cheeks, and tousled locks convey the spiritual ferocity with which he announces Christ’s coming. A painted plaster version of the bust (which Rodin derived from his over-life-size, full-length figure Saint John the Baptist Preaching of 1878) was first exhibited as an independent work in the Paris Salon of 1879. Donated to The Met by Samuel P. Avery, a founding trustee, this was the first Rodin sculpture to enter the collection.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art