Rodin Museum Private Tour
Our Rodin Museum Tour is a private guided tour in which our fully licensed guide Lecturer will help you to make the most of your visit to the Musée Rodin, a fantastic collection in an amazing mansion.
Rodin Museum Tour: Photo of Hotel Biron Rodin Museum 18th century mansion. Rear view from the park
Rodin Museum Private Tour in a Nutshell
From €179 for 1 to 2 people + €40 per extra personn
- +/- 2 hours guided tour in English
- Really private tour: your party only (6 people max.)
- Postgraduate (MPhil) certified French national guide
- Flexible schedule
- Not available on Mondays (museum closed)
- Not available on January 1, May 1, and December 25 (museum closed).
- Skip-the-line ticket to buy online (€14 per adult)
Skip-the-line-tickets clarification: With online tickets, you don’t line up with those without tickets, but you line up for security checks.
KNOW MORE / BOOK NOW
Rodin Museum Master Pieces
The Gates of Hell, The Inner Voice, Danaïd, Monument to Balzac, Monument to The Burghers of Calais, The Cathedral, The Walking Man, The Kiss, The Age of Bronze,
Ugolino and His Sons, Sleep,
etc.
Rodin Museum does not guarantee the presence of all artworks; some may be temporarily out of the museum.
Tour Figures
Edward Steichen
Antoine Bourdelle
Camille Claudel
Hanako
Rainer Maria Rilke
Tour Themes
Paintings
Photographs
Architecture
Antiques
Drawings
Tour Concepts & Technics
Practitioners
Enlargement
Fragmentation
Abbatis
Assemblage
Tour Mediums
Wax
Plasters
Terracottas
Bronzes
Marbles
Your Private Rodin Museum Tour Guide
Certified French national guide
BA, Magna Cum Laude, Heritage Development & Preservation
from Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers (Grande Ecole established in 1794)
Postgraduate from Paris Dauphine-PSL University
Why a Rodin Museum Tour?
Our private tour of the Rodin Museum allows you to delve deeper into Auguste Rodin’s life and art in an amazing, famous 18th-century mansion that Rodin used as a studio and home for over twenty years.
A large portion of the museum’s collection comes from Rodin’s collection,
The Rodin Museum Private Tour experience is a unique and intimate way to explore the works of one of the world’s greatest sculptors.
But most of all, our tour offers a coherent and ordered approach to Rodin’s work to help you understand it, which is not so easy initially!
The Musée Rodin is situated in Paris’s 7th arrondissement (district), probably the most prestigious one. The Invalides, where is buried Napoleon is just beside the Museum. The Invalides’s Dome is visible from the Museum’s Gardens.
Rodin Museum Tour Organisation
Except in case of rainy conditions the tour is organized in 4 parts.
- Comprehensive Introduction to Rodin live and main milestone works (front garden and yard of the museum)
- Discovery of the life and works of Rodin in the Museum galleries.
- Focus on Camille Claudel in the dedicated room of the Museum.
- Comprehensive stroll among the sculptures of the museum’s beautiful park.
Rose bush with the thinker in the background.
In front of The Thinker. Photo © Broaden Horizons.
Hôtel Biron: the Mansion That Houses the Museum
Hôtel Biron is one of the most prestigious 18th-century hôtel particulier (private mansions) of boulevard Saint Germain district.
During the century of light, the mansion was the residency of the Duchess du Maine, the wife of the Duc du Maine, the preferred bastard son of Louis the XIV.
Nowadays, its close neighbor, Hôtel Matignon, is nothing less than the siege of the French Prime Minister and government.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a long-time fan of Rodin’s work, our private tour is the perfect way to explore the museum at your own pace.
Rodin Museum Tour: Photo of the facade of the Hotel Biron. The Rodin Museum is also a famous and prestigious 18th-century mansion. Photo © Broaden-horizons.
The Musée Rodin Amazing Garden
The garden of the musée Rodin is one of the nicest in Paris and is naturaly home to a lot of Rodin monumental Bronzes. In the garden is also Café-restaurant l’Augustine where you can have a refreshing drink or a pastry by the famous patisserie Maison Lenôtre.
The sophisticated front part of the Musée Rodin’s garden. A formal French garden with Lawns, roses bushes, box trees, and topiaries. In the background, the dome of the Invalides and the Eiffel Tower.
Wide view of Musée Rodin’s formal French garden from behind the pond.
Balzac by Rodin in the Musée Rodin’s garden. There are plenty of other Rodin works to discover all over the garden, like the Gates of Hell, Ugolino and His Sons, Monuments to Victor Hugo, etc.
Rear Rococo facade of Musée Rodin. When visiting Musée Rodin, the mansion’s rear windows offer amazing views of the garden.
Focus on Some Aspects of the Rodin Museum Tour
The Personal Rodin Art Collection.
Rodin owned many paintings of his time (he was also a painter); his collection includes three Van Gogh, one Monet, and one Renoir painting.
Rodin was also a fan of sculptures from Ancient Rome and Greece. Ancient sculpture profoundly influenced Rodin’s art. A room in the museum called “Rodin and Antiquity” is dedicated to Rodin, its heteroclite collection of fragments of classical sculptures and artworks of various origins.
The Fragments
Rodin was an opponent of the restoration of sculptures. He firmly believed that fragments convey emotion and have a strong power of expression.
This is how Rodin started working on fragments and even removed the heads and limbs from his figures. By doing so, Rodin created a new genre of contemporary art—”the headless, limbless torso.”
The Walking Man derives from the Saint John the Baptist and perfectly illustrates the limbless concept.
Rodin, The Walking Man photographed by Eugene Druet 1907-1912. Rodin had a strong link with photography, using this new art to promote and magnify his works
The Divine Comedy a Key in Rodin’s Work
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1321, Italy) was a never-ending source of inspiration for Rodin.
This pre-eminent medieval poem imagines the afterworld in three parts:
- Hell (Inferno)
- Purgatory (Purgatorio)
- Paradise (Paradiso)
The Gates of Hell is Rodin’s transcription of Dante’s Inferno.
This is Rodin’s central work from which he will create numerous related sculptures such as Paolo and Francesca (The Kiss) or Ugolino and His Sons.
The Gates of Hell is a Rodin tribute and answer to Lorenzo Ghiberti‘s 15th-century Gates of Paradise at the Baptistery of St. John in Florence.
Rodin Museum Tour. Allegorical Portrait of Dante – late 16th century Florence – Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Know more about Rodin
Milestone Works to Understand Rodin
Man with the Broken Nose (1865)
The Age of Bronze (1877)
The Gates of Hell (1880-1917)
Bust of Victor Hugo (1883)
Eternal Springtime (1884)
Monument to the Burghers of Calais (1884-1889)
Monuments to Victor Hugo – Panthéon (1889-1890)
Monument to Balzac (1892-1898)
Monument to Victor Hugo – Palais Royal (1890-1901)
Rodin was also an excellent drawer. Rodin did many preparatory drawings for the 1883 bust of Victor Hugo.
A Moving Photo to Understand Rodin
Madame Bardey, Rodin and Henriette, 31 rue Campagne Première Paris photo by Eugène Druet, who was one of Rodin’s most prominent photographers – 1915 1916
The picture is highly informative because it shows Rodin working using clay. This is the base and the beginning of his creation process to form a three-dimensional sculpture before giving his practicians the mission to translate it into a plaster and then into a bronze cast or a marble.
This photograph shows Jeanne Bardley (sculptor, painter, and last Rodin pupil) completing a portrait bust of Rodin while the master is working on one of her daughters, Henriette.
Jeanne Bardley was one of the numerous Rodin’s Mistresses, as she was also his pupil; she has been compared to Camille Claudel. Rodin was close enough to Jeanne Bardley to give her to organize the future Rodin Museum.
Henriette, Jeanne Bardley’s daughter, was Rodin’s last important model.
The photo was taken in 1915/1916, one or two years before Rodin’s death (1917). He is already a diminished old man, but he continues to work on his image for posterity, and photography is one of the tools he uses for it.
Some of your Guide’s favorite Artworks of the Musée Rodin
- The model of The Sleep for its fragile beauty.
- She Who Was the Helmet Maker’s Once-Beautiful Wife: the implacable description of the hardness of the human condition.
- The Mature Age (also named The Path of Life or Fatality): the synthesis of the drama of Camile Claudel’s life.
- The Cathedral for its stunning simplicity.
Rodin wrote a book with 100 facsimile drawings: “Les cathédrales de France” (The French Cathedrals) in 1914. He was passionate about these Dark Ages stone naves. One of his most famous sculptures, designed in 1908, is called The Cathedral: the reunion of two right hands forms the nave.
Rodin, The Cathedral, 1908.
Focus on She Who Was the Helmet Maker’s Once-Beautiful Wife
She Who Was the Helmet Maker’s Once-Beautiful Wife was named in French by Rodin Celle qui fût la belle heaulmière. Doing so, Rondin refers and answers to a famous French poet of the end of the Middle Ages, François Villon, who wrote in 1461 Les regrets de la belle heaulmière (The Lament of La Belle Heaulmiere). Extract:
« Ha ! vieillesse felonne et fière,
Pourquoy m’as si tost abatue ?
Qui me tient que je ne me fière,
Et qu’à ce coup je ne me tue ?“
“ Ah foul age, in your bitterness
And hate, why have you used me so ?
What hinders me in my duress
Ending this life so useless now ? “
Translation by H. De Vere
Stacpoole, first published London, 1913. Full poeme accessible online: School of Advanced Study Page 44 (26)
Focus on the Kiss
The marble version of Rodin’s The Kiss at the Musée Rodin in Paris offers a unique insight into Rodin’s sculptural technique, which blended traditional and innovative approaches:
Rodin began modeling in clay, wax, or plaster to create three-dimensional works.
Assistants then used this model to produce a mold, which would be cast in plaster.
Contrary to common belief, Rodin never carved marble himself. Instead, he hired skilled “praticiens” (artisans who executed commissions for others) to carve the marble versions of his works, including The Kiss.
These “praticiens” would use a pointing machine to transfer Rodin’s plaster model proportions to the marble block, ensuring accuracy in the final sculpture.
Rodin would oversee the process, providing direction and sometimes adjusting the final marble piece.
In the Musée Rodin version of The Kiss, visitors can observe:
- The varying textures on the sculpture’s surface, from highly polished areas to rougher sections.
- Traces of the carving process, which Rodin often chose to leave visible as part of the aesthetic of the finished work.
- The interplay of light and shadow on these different textures adds depth and vitality to the sculpture.
This approach to sculpture was revolutionary for its time. By leaving visible traces of the creative process and embracing a certain “unfinished” quality, Rodin added a sense of immediacy and raw emotional power to his works. He believed these elements contributed to the expressiveness and vitality of the sculpture.
The Paris version of The Kiss by Rodin thus offers viewers not just a masterpiece of romantic sculpture but also a glimpse into the innovative techniques that made Rodin one of the most influential sculptors of his time.
Rodin Museum Tour. The Kiss, Rodin.
Rodin Museum Private Tour Reviews
Great experiences Musee Louvre & Rodin
We (four of us) took the 4-hr Friday night Louvre tour, then backed up with the Musee Rodin. Yves constructed two wonderful experiences for us. Yves is very passionate about you getting the best tour experience and a great communicator (and lovely bloke). His knowledge and stamina is amazing. We regard these tours as part of the high points of our 10-day stay in Paris.
More Rodin Related Places in Paris and Outside
The Musée Rodin in Meudon
In Meudon is the Villa des Brillants, Rodin’s home for the last 20 years of his life. There is the famous Plasters Gallery, where his sculptures are displayed in the successive states of their creation process.
In the park of the Villa des Brillants is Rodin’s tomb, surmounted by The Thinker.
The Musée Rodin in Meudon is at +/- half an hour from Paris by public transportation from Invalides.
The Musée Camille Claudel (Nogent-sur Seine)
The Musée Camille Claudel is in Nogent-sur-Marne a city at +/- 1 hour from Paris Gare de l’Est by train. Once there, add ten minutes on foot from the railway station to reach the museum.
During the Notre Dame to Marais walking tour, you can also see the building where Camille Claudel lived in île Saint-Louis before being sent to the asylum.
The Rodin Sculptures in the Streets of Paris
The Facade of the former Théâtre des Gobelins (73 avenue des Gobelins, nowadays the Foundation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé) shows some of the first works of Rodin (1869) when he was working as an ornamentalist.
On the Hôtel de Ville de Paris facade, the Jean Le Rond d’Alembert Statue is still very classical.
The Balzac can be seen at 136 Boulevard Raspail (Metro Vavin). In the Jardin des Tuileries are Eve and The Kiss.
A bronze cast of Victor Hugo and the Muses is at the
The intersection of Avenues Victor-Hugo and Henry Martin (16th arr).
In Jardin du Luxembourg, there is a bronze medallion by Rodin of French 19th-century writer Stendhal. Rodin took inspiration from a drawing by sculptor David d’Angers.
Rodin Museum Tour. Rodin The Kiss, Jardin des Tuileries with Place de la Concorde in the background. Photo © Broaden-horizons.
Thinks to Know Before Booking
Meeting Point
Close to the Rodin Museum entrance (exact place on the tour confirmation voucher), 77 rue de Varenne 75007 Paris.
Access: Bus: 69, 82, 87, 92. Métro Line 13 station Varenne or Invalides or Line 8 Invalides. RER C station Invalides.
Rodin Museum-Tour Attention Points
- Prices do not include food, drinks, or any other extra services.
- Tour duration and content are indicative. Visits may vary due to contingencies.
- A private tour means a tour for you & your party only, not that Rodin Museum is privatized.
- Skip-the-line ticket means a ticket bought online; nevertheless, you still have to stand in line with other Skip-the-line ticket bearers for security and sanitary controls.
- Refund: if we cannot do the tour for any reason, we refund the tour, but never your museum tickets.
Book Your Private Tour of Rodin Museum
Caution the Rodin Museum Tour is sold without Museum tickets – It is your responsibility to buy your Rodin Museum tickets – Buy your Skip-the-line one-line Museum tickets once you have your Broaden-Horizons tour confirmation. You must have your Skip-the-line one-line tickets on the day of the tour. If you don’t have them, we won’t be able to do the tour, and you won’t be refunded.
Rodin Museum Private Tour
+/- 2-hours tourFor 1 to 2 people + €40 for any extra person
A group of up to 6 people, exclusively yours
English language
Tickets not included