In making a rooster an object of sculptural contemplation, I wonder if Picasso was punning and playing off of Rodin’s rough-hewn, yet dignified bronze images of men striving and thinking. And in Picasso resisting the impulse to contemplate man in bronze, after a godlike fashion, I also see a response to the ancient Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, who said, Mortals think that the gods are born as they are, and have senses, and a voice and body like their own. But here is Picasso perhaps holding up for us the image of a rooster as a thing in the universe also echoing divinity—and worthy of reflection. Picasso’s Rooster was first modeled in 1932 in plaster and then cast in bronze in the 1950s. Only four statues were bronzed. The sculpture of the proud rooster was made during the years the artist spent at his chateau in Normandy, where he produced some of his most important paintings and sculptures.