Cleveland Museum of Art
The Thinker
Auguste RodinLinkedCulture matchlcp-330bd0e8de10
- Date
- 1880–81
- Medium
- bronze
- Culture
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 97797
The Thinker was first developed as part of Rodin's The Gates of Hell , a sculptured doorway for a proposed museum of decorative arts in Paris. Intended to be part of a relief directly above the doors, the rugged figure was originally conceived as a generalized image of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), who wrote the Divine Comedy . This enlarged version of The Thinker is one of less than 10 cast during Rodin's lifetime.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Ralph King
- Provenance
- purchased from the artist in 1916.
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