The Clenched Left Hand (Study for Hand of Pierre de Wiessant)

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

To Rodin, hands communicated as forcefully as the human face. His independent sculptures of hands are portraits of emotions. This emphatically modeled, dramatically gesturing hand—that both seeks and draws away, that clenches but cannot grasp—is one of Rodin’s most compelling depictions of powerless despair.

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