The Musée Rodin houses the works of France’s greatest sculpture Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). The museum is a little gem in itself- it is housed in a prestigious 18th century mansion called the Hotel Biron around the corner from les Invalides. Rodin lived there for a number of years and at the last year of his life he donated he works, personal collections and copyrights to France. It was in 1919 that the museum was inaugurated.

The entrance fee is 13 euros and you have access to the museum as well as the beautiful gardens. When my twins were little, we lived a short walk from here and at that time it was just 1 euro to enter only the gardens- and children were free! My mom friends and I would meet in the garden of the Rodin Museum regularly; our babies and toddlers took their first steps in the shadows of some of the greatest sculptures of all times. Quel chance! There is a café where you can grab a coffee or lunch and there are restrooms outdoors as well.

The museum is organized chronologically beginning on the ground floor. It’s a pleasure to climb the starts to reach the 1st floor of this hotel particular- the staircase is gorgeous and the last two times I visited there were chic young girls posing for their insta/tik toks, etc….

The museums also houses some works from Rodin’s student and lover Camille Claudel (an exceptional artist- and maybe even more talented than Rodin?). She is deserving of a separate article dedicated just to her that I’ll do another time.

One thing to note about Rodin is that he is considered an Impressionist sculptor. Monet would play with light and Rodin made sure that his subjects always looked like they were in movement. Color does not factor into his work like for Monet, his interest in the effect of light on sculpted surfaces, and the experimental nature of his methods reveal the extent to which Impressionism influenced his sculpture. Rodin worked mostly with his hands, molding clay or plaster into casts. One of his trademarks is the leaving of a physical mark of the artist, traces of his fingertips are often visible on the surface of his sculptures.

Here are my choices for the top 7 Rodin works that you shouldn’t miss.

1. The Thinker

You’ll notice The Thinker in the garden right away. If you are there in late spring or the summer months he is surrounded by fragrant roses. He may look stationary but he actually in movement. It’s his thoughts that are churning. Rodin explained in discussing The Thinker, “he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes.”

2. The Cathedral

This pair of barely touching hands were carved in stone and are still covered in Rodin’s toolmarks. The Cathedral is a combination of two right hands, belonging to two different people. Rodin was extremely religious and had a passion for cathedrals. The piece was originally called Ark of the Covenant but after Rodin wrote a book called The Cathedrals of France describing some of France’s major cathedrals the name was changed. The fingers and hands are said to evoke the feeling of arches in a cathedral.

3. Monument To Balzac

Rodin’s version of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac is said to be the first example of a truly modern sculpture. According to Rodin, the sculpture aims to portray the writer’s persona rather than his physical likeness. The work was commissioned and Rodin had 18 months to complete it, it took him 7 years! He became obsessed reading Balzac’s works and visiting where he lived. The writer Balzac wrote about the darker essence of human nature and the corrupting influence of middle and high societies. It would make sense that he has a statue made of him with his nose turned up at society.

Rodin's Balzac sculpture in Paris France

4. The Burghers Of Calais

The Monument to the Burghers of Calais is a statuary group inaugurated on the square of the town hall of Calais in 1895. There are in all twelve original bronze editions of the Burghers of Calais scattered throughout the world. Some people travel to visit all of them like my second cousin Martie and her husband Harry. I was taking a picture of them while they were in Paris when one of my twins ran out from behind them and is forever immortalized in this picture.

Here is the background of this piece: In 1346, King Edward III of England laid siege to the city of Calais. French King Philip VI refused to surrender. After eleven months of siege, the starving city negotiated. Edward III accepted that 6 leaders of the city be handed over to him in order to be executed, in return sparing the lives of the rest of the city. Edward III’s wife Philippa of Hainaut begged her husband to spare the lives of these six men, who bravely had come ready to die with the rope already around their necks.

5. The Walking Man

When the light hits this sculpture the right way, it looks as if he might just continue on walking right off his pedestal. The Walking Man has one foot back and one forward. It is said to represent Rodin’s style of sculpting in the classical past and modernist future.

6. The Kiss

Nothing says love (or lust) like The Kiss although it’s not quite as innocent as it seems. The embracing naked couple in the sculpture first appeared as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s monumental bronze doors The Gates of Hell Rodin changed his mind and removed the couple and replaced them with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.

The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante‘s Inferno who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta‘s younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca’s husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand. The lovers’ lips do not actually touch in the sculpture, suggesting that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched.

7. The Gates Of Hell

The Gates of Hell is a monumental work commissioned in 1880 for the entrance to a Museum of Decorative Arts that was to be built in Paris. It is a kind of compilation of numerous works by the sculptor, on which he worked for thirty years and which he never finished.

Rodin was inspired by a scene in Dante’s inferno. Rodin thought that people would walk toward the work, perhaps up a flight of stairs, and be overwhelmed frontally by the massive gates, contemplating the experience of hell. Rodin thought particularly of Dante’s warning over the entrance of the Inferno, “Abandon every hope, who enter here.”

You are sure to notice The Thinker placed above the door panels. One interpretation suggests that it might represent Dante looking down to the characters in the Inferno. Another interpretation is that the Thinker is Rodin himself meditating about his composition. Others believe that the figure may be Adam, contemplating the destruction brought upon mankind because of his sin.

"The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface, soul, love, passion life… sculpture is thus the art of hollows and mounds, not of smoothness, or even polished planes." AUGUSTE RODIN

Musée Rodin
77 rue de Varenne
75007 Paris

Telephone: +33 (0)1 44 18 61 10

Metro: Varenne (line 13) or Invalides (line 13, line 8)
RER: Invalides (line C)
Bus: 69, 82, 87, 92
Vélib’: 9 boulevard des Invalides
Parking: Boulevard des Invalides

If you are in the neighbourhood, right around the corner from the Rodin Museum is the Invalides, you surely passed right by it. Here is my article on the background of the Napoleon statue.

7 Of The Rodin Museum’s Greatest Works