Musée Rodin

The Musée Rodin is an art museum in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, dedicated primarily to the work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Opened in 1919, it operates across two sites: the Hôtel Biron and its gardens in central Paris, and the Villa des Brillants in Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, which was Rodin's former home. The museum holds approximately 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 10,000 old photographs, and 8,000 objets d'art, and it receives around 700,000 visitors annually. Since 1993 it has been governed as a public administrative establishment, and it ranks among the most visited museums in France.

The museum's origins trace to Rodin's donation of his entire collection to the French State on the condition that the buildings be converted into a museum dedicated to his works. Rodin had begun using the Hôtel Biron as his workshop from 1908 while living at the Villa des Brillants. In October 1909 he rented four rooms on the ground floor for 5,900 francs per year, and when the property was put up for sale that December for 5.1 million francs, he expressed his wish to reside there until his death. Senator Gaudin de Villaine intervened to prevent the sale, and after some hesitation the State agreed. The site was officially designated the Musée Rodin on 1 April 1916. Rodin died on 17 November 1917, before the museum opened to the public on 4 August 1919. A three-year renovation was completed with the museum's reopening on 12 November 2015. Since February 1993 a State decree has governed the museum's organization, and Amélie Simier has served as director since 3 May 2021, appointed by Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot.

The collection encompasses sculpture, drawing, photography, and decorative arts, reflecting both Rodin's own output and his activities as a collector. The graphic holdings comprise approximately 8,000 drawings spanning landscape observation, works inspired by Dante and Baudelaire, erotic nudes, and portraits. The photography collection numbers around 10,000 photographs, of which 7,000 were collected by Rodin himself; these document studio practice between 1877 and 1917 and include collaborations with photographers such as Eugène Druet, Jacques-Ernest Bulloz, Adolphe Braun, and Edward Steichen. As a collector, Rodin amassed over 6,000 ancient works from Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Far East during the last two decades of his life, alongside works by Naturalist and Symbolist painters including Théodule Ribot, Alfred Roll, Eugène Carrière, and Charles Cottet. His collection also included paintings acquired through purchase and exchange, notably three works by Vincent van Gogh, Renoir's Nude in the Sunlight, and Monet's Belle-Île.

The museum contains most of Rodin's significant creations. Among the sculptures are The Thinker (1880), The Kiss (1886), and The Gates of Hell, the latter displayed in the gardens in its first bronze casting, produced posthumously in 1926. The gardens also feature The Burghers of Calais, Balzac, and other monumental bronzes. Early works include Man with a Broken Nose and The Age of Bronze, the latter acquired by the State in 1880. A dedicated room presents works by Camille Claudel, including the 1913 casting of The Mature Age (1898), The Wave (1897), The Waltz, Sakountala (1905), and an 1892 casting of Bust of Rodin (1888-1889). Claudel was Rodin's student, model, collaborator, and lover from 1884 until the early 1890s, and they remained in contact until 1899.

The Paris site is the Hôtel Biron, a freestanding hôtel particulier at 77 rue de Varenne. Designed by Jean Aubert and Jacques-Ange Gabriel, it was constructed between 1727 and 1731 for Abraham Peyrenc de Moras, a wigmaker and speculator. The building passed through numerous owners and names: the Countess of Maine, who added a petit hôtel in the gardens in 1738; Duke Louis Antoine de Gontaut-Biron, who gave it its enduring name; and after standing empty, the Society of the Sacred Heart, which established a school for young women there in 1820. Under the 1904 law separating Church and State, the property was confiscated by the French State. Artists including Henri Matisse (1908-1909) and Jean Cocteau (1909-1910) subsequently took up residence there. The gardens surrounding the building display many of Rodin's sculptures in natural settings, and behind the museum a small lake and casual restaurant are found.

The Musée Rodin is located at the corner of rue de Varenne and boulevard des Invalides in Paris's 7th arrondissement. It is accessible via Métro Line 13 (Varenne station, which features Rodin sculptures on the platform), RER Line C (Invalides), and bus lines 69, 82, 87, and 92. The museum is part of the Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées. Beyond its permanent collections, the museum organizes temporary exhibitions devoted to Rodin and contemporary art, a practice dating to the first Salon de la jeune sculpture in 1949. Recent temporary exhibitions have included shows on Rodin and Cambodian dancers (91,000 visitors, 2006), Rodin and Eros (84,000 visitors, 2006-2007), and Camille Claudel (150,000 visitors, 2008). Contemporary artists exhibited include Anthony Caro, Eugène Dodeigne, Bill Viola, Adel Abdessemed, Mircea Cantor, Wim Delvoye, and Henry Moore.