Best Sculpture

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is Umberto Boccioni's 1913 bronze Futurist figure, notable for making speed and motion central to modern sculpture.

Endless Column is Constantin Brancusi's 1938 vertical monument in Targu Jiu, Romania, noted for its repeated rhomboid modules and war memorial role.

The Kiss is Constantin Brancusi's early 20th-century limestone sculpture of an embracing couple, notable for its radical simplification of the human figure.

Bird in Space is a streamlined sculpture series by Romanian-born Constantin Brancusi, begun in the 1920s and noted for reducing flight to pure form.

The Walking Man I is Alberto Giacometti's 1960 bronze, a spare striding figure that became one of his best-known postwar images.

The Gates of Hell is Rodin's vast portal begun in 1880, inspired by Dante and containing figures that became independent sculptures.

The Burghers of Calais is Rodin's 1889 monument to six citizens of Calais, notable for showing civic sacrifice without heroic triumph.

The Thinker is Auguste Rodin's bronze figure conceived for The Gates of Hell, later cast as an independent icon of contemplation.

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss is Antonio Canova's marble group of 1787 to 1793, celebrated for its Neoclassical balance and tender pose.

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is Bernini's 1651 fountain in Rome's Piazza Navona, symbolizing four great rivers on four continents.

The Rape of Proserpina is Bernini's 1621 to 1622 marble group, noted for its dramatic abduction scene and virtuoso carved flesh.

David is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1623 to 1624 marble in the Galleria Borghese, notable for showing the biblical hero mid-action.

Apollo and Daphne is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1622 to 1625 marble group in Rome, famed for carving Daphne's metamorphosis into laurel.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is Bernini's marble group in Rome, completed in 1652 and notable for theatrical Baroque religious drama.

Michelangelo's Moses is a marble figure for Pope Julius II's tomb, carved in the 1510s and notable for its tense seated power.

Michelangelo's Pieta is a marble group in St Peter's Basilica, completed about 1499 and notable as the artist's signed early masterpiece.

Michelangelo's David is a marble statue completed in 1504 for Florence, notable as a monumental Renaissance image of civic resolve.

Donatello's David is a bronze nude made in 15th-century Florence, notable as an early free-standing Renaissance male nude after antiquity.

The Gates of Paradise are Lorenzo Ghiberti's gilded bronze doors for Florence Baptistery, completed in 1452 and famed for perspective reliefs.

The Column of Trajan is a Roman victory column completed in 113 CE, notable for its spiral relief narrating Trajan's Dacian campaigns.

Boxer at Rest is a Hellenistic Greek bronze from the 4th or 3rd century BCE, notable for its battered realism and rare survival in bronze.

The Belvedere Torso is a signed Hellenistic marble fragment by Apollonios of Athens, admired by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo.

Aphrodite of Knidos is Praxiteles' 4th-century BCE Greek nude goddess statue, famed in antiquity as a landmark image of divine female beauty.

Dying Slave is Michelangelo's marble figure for Julius II's tomb project, carved about 1513 and now in the Louvre in Paris.

The Ara Pacis is Augustus' marble altar of peace in Rome, dedicated in 9 BCE and notable for its imperial procession reliefs.

The Monument to Balzac is Rodin's public memorial to the French novelist, commissioned in 1891 and rejected before later acclaim.

Kritios Boy is an early Classical Greek marble youth from about 480 BCE, notable for introducing contrapposto after Archaic kouros rigidity.

The Lamassu from Khorsabad is an Assyrian winged human-headed bull from Sargon II's palace in Iraq, made to guard royal gateways.

The Rape of the Sabine Women is Giambologna's marble group in Florence, completed in 1583 and noted for its spiraling composition.