Abstract: In this paper, a retrieval methodology for 3D articulated objects is presented that relies upon a graph-based object representation. The methodology is composed of a mesh segmentation stage which creates the Attributed Relation Graph (ARG) of the object along with a graph matching algorithm which matches two ARGs. The graph matching algorithm is based on the Earth Movers Distance (EMD) similarity measure calculated with a new ground distance assignment. The superior performance of the proposed retrieval methodology against state-of-the-art approaches is shown by extensive experimentation that comprise the application of various geometric descriptors representing the components of the 3D objects that become the node attributes of the ARGs as well as alternative mesh segmentation approaches for the extraction of the object parts. The performance evaluation is addressed in both qualitative and quantitative terms.