Rodin made the artwork in 1880. There are about forty casts. The highest price paid for a copy was $15.3 million at an auction in New York in 2013.
The original statue is about 70 centimeters high and was initially given the name De Dichter. It depicts the medieval Italian poet and author Dante, who leans forward to observe the circles of hell.
The statue was designed to crown De Hellepoort, a work that the French sculptor never completed. From 1888 The Thinker was exhibited individually. Sixteen years later, the statue was first enlarged to full-length versions, as seen in the Rodin Museum in Paris. Those images of a man lost in thought with a muscular body proved even more popular.