Paris - Musée Rodin

The great French sculptor Auguste Rodin lived in the former Hôtel Biron (built 1728-31) until he died in 1917, bequeathing some of his work and his own personal collection to the State. The Museum and its beautiful garden were opened to the public in the same year.

The collection includes full-size copies of many of his world-famous monumental works.

In the garden are the "Thinker" ("Le Penseur"), the "Burghers of Calais" ("Les Bourgeois de Calais"), "Ugolino", the "Walker" ("L'Homme qui marche") and the "Gates of Hell" ("La Porte d'Enfer"). Within the museum itself are a number of studies of hands, including the "Hand of God" ("La Main de Dieu") and the "Cathedral" ("La Cathédrale"), "The Kiss" ("Le Baiser"), "The Eternal Idol" ("L'Eternelle Idole"), "The Prayer" ("La Prière"), "The Spring" ("La Source"), "The Age of Brass" ("L'Age d'Airain"), "I am beautiful" ("Je suis belle"), "The Storm" ("La Tempête"), "Psyche - Spring" ("Psyché - Printemps"), "The Call to Arms" ("L'Appel aux Armes"), a bust of Clemenceau, a marble bust of Mozart (in reality altered from a portrait of Mahler of 1907), "Eve", "St John the Baptist" and studies of Rodin's life- companion Rose Beuret, Lady Sackville West, the Japanese dancer Hanako, Balzac and Victor Hugo. There are also numerous drawings, ink and pencil sketches, Rodin's furniture and works by Camille Claudel, van Gogh ("Le Père Tanguy") and Renoir (a female nude).

Two other internationally famed figures lived for a time in the Hôtel Biron - Jean Cocteau and the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who worked as Rodin's secretary.