Adam

Rodin Tullio Lombardo carved this life-sized nude around 1490-1495 in Venice. It's the first freestanding nude marble sculpture created since antiquity, making it one of the most significant Renaissance sculptures in existence. Adam's pose draws from ancient Roman figures of Antinous and Bacchus, reinterpreted with what scholars describe as "almost Attic simplicity."

It originally stood in a niche on the monumental tomb of Doge Andrea Vendramin in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. On October 6, 2002, its pedestal collapsed at the Met. The statue shattered into 28 large pieces and hundreds of smaller fragments. It took 12 years of conservation before the restored Adam went back on display in 2014.

Now the focal point of Gallery 504 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it stands 191.8 cm (75.5 inches) tall and is widely considered the most important Italian Renaissance sculpture in North America.