Which artist created the sculpture 'The Gates of Hell'?

Auguste Rodin created the sculpture “The Gates of Hell.” This monumental bronze group depicts scenes inspired by the “Inferno,” the first part of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy,” and became one of the French sculptor’s most ambitious lifelong projects.

The French Directorate of Fine Arts commissioned the work in 1880 for the entrance to a planned Decorative Arts Museum in Paris. That museum was never built, but Rodin continued revising the doors for 37 years, adding, removing, enlarging, and rearranging more than 200 figures before his death in 1917.

The sculpture is about 6 metres high, 4 metres wide, and 1 metre deep, with roughly 180 figures in its monumental composition. Several figures conceived for the doors later became independent masterpieces. The most famous is “The Thinker,” positioned above the doorway; “The Kiss” was also originally connected with the project before Rodin removed it.

Because the work draws on Dante, it is sometimes confused with Renaissance or Baroque religious sculpture by artists such as Michelangelo or Bernini. They did not create this sculpture. Rodin’s original plaster model is preserved at the Musée d’Orsay, while bronze casts exist in several museums around the world.