<em>The Thinker </em>was first developed as part of Rodin's <em>The Gates of Hell</em>, a sculptured doorway for a proposed museum of decorative arts in Paris. Intended to be part of a relief directly above the doors, the rugged figure was originally conceived as a generalized image of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), who wrote the <em>Divine Comedy</em>.