This female figure, designed initially for The Gates of Hell, reinvents a traditional type of architectural support figure typically found in Mannerist and Baroque buildings. Slender and despondent, the nude female collapses under the weight of a huge stone. Rodin's predecessors typically showed caryatid figures as strong and resilient to the burden they carry -- or if they struggled, there was never a sense of utter collapse under the weight. Recalling those souls in Dante's Purgatory who expiate their sins by carrying huge stones on their backs, she seems condemned to eternally support her burden.