In a spectacular robbery in January 2007, thieves stole seven sculptures from the collections of the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands. Among the items taken was a cast of the world-famous bronze-and-marble sculpture The Thinker by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

After two days, the stolen property was found, but the thieves had tried to cut up the sculpture to melt the metal and sell it as scrap. While six of the sculptures could not be saved, the museum decided to try to repair The Thinker, valued between $3 million and $10 million. The cast is one of 20 originals made of the sculpture, considered to be one of Rodin’s seminal works.

The sculpture’s head was nearly cut off, and the rest of the face and body were severely damaged. It was sent to the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Conservation and Restoration, where, in 2009, a team of restoration technicians began almost two years of repair work. First, the damaged sculpture and the original mold from Paris were scanned using 3-D imagery. Technicians compared the two scans and calculated the exact size and shape of the damaged and missing parts. The information was then entered into a computer program at the Belgian company Materialise, and a 3-D printer created the missing parts in a resinlike material. Based on these models, new molds were made, which the technicians used to reconstruct the parts in bronze. The parts were a perfect fit, and the sculpture is now back home in the museum.