Young woman 1840 - 1912

"Young Woman" is a plaster sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin. This small-scale work, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, captures a woman in a moment of contemplation, her head bent down in a gesture of quiet introspection. The unfinished, rough-hewn surface is characteristic of Rodin's later works and his emphasis on capturing the energy and emotion of the human form, rather than focusing on idealized perfection. This is an example of a maquette, a small-scale model often used by artists as a preparatory study for larger sculptures.