If the sculpture existed in all civilizations, its forms and its importance were extremely variable.

The first sculptures go back to Prehistory: engraved rocks appearing of the animals in the rock shelters of Eyzies (21 ' 000 front J. - C., the Dordogne) or statuettes like Venus de Willendorf (21 ' 000 front J. - C.) or Venus de Lespugue (21 ' 000 front J. - C.), they mark the beginnings of the artisanal activity of the kind Homo faber. It is in paleolithic Europe that was born the sculpture.

One then finds it in the ages of the Middle East: of the IV ^E to the II ^E thousand-year-old, Babylonian and Sumerian art develops in Mésopotamie, giving birth, under the reign of Goudea, with images of a remarkable realism and an expressivity; it is then the Assyrian art (IX ^E - VII ^E front century J. - C.). At the same time develops the Egyptian sculpture, of 2 ' 900 with 500 av. J. - C. Parallel to this one, Crete knows its first sculptures with the Minoan art (towards 2 ' 000 front J. - C.), and the Greek islands of Cyclades see appearing the cycladic idols.  

From the VIII ^E front century J. - C. and until our days, the figurative sculpture knows a quasi continuous history in Europe, from Greece in Rome, then as a whole the worldwide Western.  

Civilizations of the Far East had independent developments moreover world: sculpture born in India towards the III ^E front century J. - C. knew its apogee with colossal works of Borobudur, in the island of Java (VIII E century apr. J. - C.), and decorations of Angkor (XII ^E century). The first Chinese sculptures date from X ^E front century J. - C., this art knowing its last great time under the Tang dynasty, of the VII ^E with X ^E century of our era. As for Japan, it generally granted little importance to the sculpture, except for certain religious statues of the O C to the XII ^E century.