Study of a hand

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rodin was fascinated by the expressive possibilities of hands: hands gesturing in anguish as in The Burghers of Calais, small studies of hands pulsing with life, giant enigmatic hands sufficient unto themselves. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), who was for a time Rodin's secretary, wrote: "There are among the works of Rodin's hands, single small hands, which without belonging to a body, are alive. Hands that rise, irritated and in wrath; hands whose five bristling fingers seem to bark like the five jaws of a dog of Hell."

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