Torso (A Study for Ariane without Arms)

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the 1880s, Rodin began to break apart his sculptural studies and treat the fragments as independent works of art. He may have displayed this terracotta torso on its small wooden base in his studio until 1912, when he donated it to The Met. The scarred torso recalls the "noble vestiges" of the Parthenon that Rodin admired in the British Museum during his London sojourns.

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