Auguste Rodin received the commission for The Gates of Hell in 1880.
The French government commissioned Rodin to design monumental doors for a planned Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Rodin based the project loosely on themes from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, especially the Inferno, although the final composition became far more personal and complex than a direct illustration.
The doors were never installed because the planned museum project was abandoned. Rodin continued revising the work for decades, filling it with more than 200 figures and motifs. Several famous independent sculptures, including The Thinker and The Kiss, are connected to figures or ideas developed for the doors.
Although The Gates of Hell remained unfinished during Rodin’s lifetime, it became one of the central sources for understanding his artistic development. The plaster was eventually cast in bronze after his death.