Bronze with gold patina

César Baldaccini (1921–1998, France)

César Baldaccini first cast his thumb for the 1965 hand-themed exhibition Le Main in Paris. Following the creation of his first casting, Baldaccini went on to make a series of increasingly larger versions of the thumb, scaling-up the smaller model with traditional techniques. The motif of the thumb has since become the most well-known of the artist’s subjects.