Rodin museum, masterpieces by Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel

The Rodin Museum was created in 1919, on Rodin's initiative, thanks to three successive donations that the artist made to the french State of his works, collections, library, letters, and manuscripts. The museum is established at the Hôtel Biron on the site chosen by the sculptor. It is a private mansion built at the beginning of the 18th century. Rodin also donated his residence in Meudon (30 km), the Villa des Brillants, which is now an annex of the museum.

The Rodin Museum in Paris

Located in the heart of Paris, the Rodin Museum enjoys an exceptional location just a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower and the Hotel des Invalides. Composed of an 18th-century mansion and a sculpture garden of almost three hectares, the museum houses the sculptures of Rodin. The perfect harmony of the sculpture garden and the charm of the rocaille architecture of its Biron hotel will make your visit a unique moment of your stay in Paris.

The museum garden and its sculptures by Rodin

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Rodin the sculptor is known internationally. But he was also an immense draftsman, engraver, and an amateur ceramist. He was also interested in photography (7000 photos collected by Rodin out of the 25000 preserved) and was also an avid collector. The paintings of his painter friends, antiques coming from Egypt, Greece, or Rome and then from the Far East. As his fame grew, numerous commissions enabled him to acquire more than six thousand works between 1893 and 1917.

He felt how important what constituted his daily world was for the understanding of his own work. Hence his archives: tens of thousands of handwritten and printed documents, books, and periodicals evoke, in an extremely vivid way, more than seventy years of Rodin's private, social and artistic life. Thanks to them, we are at the very heart of creation.

The Rodin Museum holds a collection of nearly 6,800 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 10,000 old photographs, and 8,000 other art objects. With 700,000 visitors per year, the Rodin Museum is one of the most important French museums.

Camille Claudel, muse and equal of Rodin (1864-1943)

One cannot evoke Rodin without mentioning Camille Claudel. She was Auguste Rodin's pupil, mistress, and muse from an artistic and sentimental point of view until they broke up in 1892. Rodin transmitted his knowledge to her, before using it as a model for several of his works (Fugit Amor, La Danaïde).

The young woman's talent is such that she becomes a true collaborator of the master, working with him in the realization of some of his most famous creations, such as the Gates of Hell. Rodin says it himself :

"Mademoiselle Claudel has become my most extraordinary practitioner, I consult her in everything." And to those who criticize her, Rodin will answer: "I showed her where to find gold, but the gold she finds is hers."

It is thus in all logic that a Camille Claudel room is created at the Rodin Museum. It then received several donations from Paul Claudel, the artist's brother, writer, diplomat, and academician. In particular, the Mature Age, Clotho, and Vertumne and Pomone, among his 45 works kept in the museum.

After her breakup with Rodin, Camille Claudel soon locks herself up in solitude and gradually sinks into paranoia. In February 1913, her family locked her up in a psychiatric asylum for paranoia against her will.  She died there thirty years later in 1943. Her remains unclaimed by her family were transferred to the ossuary of the cemetery of Montfavet, 84140, a suburb of Avignon.

Camille Claudel rehabilitated and recognized through a film

The release of the superb film Camille Claudel in 1988 marked an important step in the process of rediscovery and rehabilitation of the artist undertaken since the 1980s. The film was shot under the direction of Bruno Nuytten from the book by Reine-Marie Paris (great-niece of Camille Claudel). Isabelle Adjani plays the artist.

Rodin Museum in Meudon (Annex 30 km from Paris)

House, workshop, park: everything is gathered in Meudon to discover in a unique experience the sculpture and the world of Rodin.

The tour begins at the Villa des Brillants where Rodin lived the last 20 years of his life. Nearby, the visitor discovers the tactile space where reproductions of resin works can be discovered by touch. Below, the plaster gallery is a real plunge into the heart of the artist's creation. The presentation of the sculptures in their successive states allows the visitor to understand the different stages of Rodin's creative journey.

In the vast park, the tomb of Rodin, surmounted by the Thinker, welcomes visitors for a meditative moment facing the Seine Valley. A place of life and creation, the Rodin Museum of Meudon is also a place of transmission where many artistic and cultural education projects are organized for young people of all ages and all origins.

Reproductions of sculptures, drawings, and miniatures by Auguste Rodin

They can be purchased directly from the Rodin Museum store and sent abroad on request.

Heir to the copyright since the death of the sculptor in 1917, the museum, according to the will of Rodin himself, publishes and sells original works in bronze. These are made from the original molds bequeathed by the artist. These editions are limited to 12 copies.

Once this limit was reached, and since the 1960s, the museum has been publishing the most faithful resin reproductions, always based on the original mold, the matrix of the work itself.

In addition to the small models, it is possible to reproduce the greatest masterpieces of Rodin: The Thinker, The Monument to the Burghers of Calais, The Balzac, etc.

These large-scale reproductions require several weeks or months of work and are available on-demand to Ugo Lachendowier (lachendowier@musee-rodin.fr - Tél: +33 (0)1 44 18 61 57).