The Thinker

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Thinker was made to sit over the lintel of Rodin’s monumental bronze doorway, The Gates of Hell, contemplating the fate of the damned. Independent bronzes of The Thinker became popular, especially among American patrons. Thomas Fortune Ryan, principal founder of the Rodin collection at The Met, commissioned this cast from the sculptor’s studio. In a real sense, The Thinker is Rodin. Brutishly muscled yet engrossed in thought, coiled in tension yet loose in repose, the sculpture, according to one early twentieth-century critic, embodies both "dream and action."

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