Musée Rodin, Paris

Musée Rodin is an art museum devoted chiefly to Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, housed here in the Hôtel Biron and its grounds. Its Paris site opened in 1919, while another site occupies Rodin’s former home at Meudon. The mansion was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and Rodin later turned rooms here into his workshop.

From the building, let your attention move across the garden, where major works including The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, and The Burgher of Calais are displayed among the planting. Rodin’s arrangement with the French state made this museum possible: he gave his works, along with paintings he had collected by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, on the condition that the buildings become a museum dedicated to his art. Beyond sculpture, the holdings comprise 7,000 objects of art, 8,000 old photographs, 6,600 sculptures, and 8,000 drawings.

Inside, a room devoted to Camille Claudel includes The Mature Age; Claudel was Rodin’s student, model, collaborator, associate, and lover. This place therefore preserves both the public masterpieces and the working world around them.