AN ICONIC sculpture is set to go on display at Kendal’s Abbot Hall Art Gallery next month.

Auguste Rodin’s statue The Thinker is on loan from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow from August 10 until October 27. It is part of the ‘Rodin: rethinking the fragment’ exhibition.

It will be shown alongside three objects from the British Museum – a classical torso from a marble statuette of Venus (about 1st century AD), Royal Academy medal (about 1901), showing the Athenian Acropolis alongside the Belvedere Torso and Eugène Carrière’s portrait of Auguste Rodin sculpting (1900).

Abbot Hall is the first venue in the country to host this British Museum Partnership Spotlight Loan, supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.

This is the first time Roman Art has been on show at Abbot Hall. The objects shed light on the influence of classical antiquity on Rodin.

And the spotlight on Rodin coincides with the Elisabeth Frink Fragility and Power exhibition which celebrates one of the most exciting British sculptors of the 20th century and is the first large scale show of her work in the North West for several years.

Frances Guy, Director of Programming for Lakeland Arts, said: “We are thrilled to be the first gallery in the country to host this British Museum Spotlight Loan.

“Rodin was the originator of 21st century sculpture. He was the catalyst for changing the way artists appreciated sculpture. He made society look at public sculpture in a different, more fluid way.

“This is a really exciting time for Abbot Hall with two excellent exhibitions which are interlinked. Alongside Rodin we have a major exhibition by Elisabeth Frink - one of the most exciting sculptors of modern times. And of course, Frink’s most important influence was Rodin.”

The Thinker was conceived to sit high up on Rodin’s The Gates of Hell. Rodin’s inspiration for the sculpture included one of the most celebrated sculpture fragments to survive from antiquity, the Belvedere Torso.

Barbara Vujanovi?, Senior Curator, The Ivan Meštrovi? Museums - the Meštrovi? Atelier, Zagreb, and Project Curator of this Spotlight loan - said: “I am delighted to have worked with the British Museum on this exciting partnership exhibition, which reveals how Rodin viewed fragments from antiquity as works of art to be celebrated. I look forward to seeing the different ways in which the venues approach this exhibition.”

n After Cumbria, ‘Rethinking the fragment’ travels to the Holburne Museum, Bath, and New Art Gallery, Walsall.