Musée Rodin Museum

Address: Musée Rodin, 77 Rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France

Website: https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en

Hours: Tue-Sun 10am-6:30pm, closed Mondays

Musée Rodin is a Paris museum devoted to the work of sculptor Auguste Rodin, centered on the Hôtel Biron and its gardens in the 7th arrondissement. The museum was established after Rodin’s death when he bequeathed his collection to the French state.

The site’s highlights include indoor galleries of plaster casts, sketches and finished bronzes, plus a landscaped garden that displays many of Rodin’s large outdoor sculptures in scale. Major works on display include casts of The Thinker, The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais, shown both inside and across the grounds.

The collection grew from Rodin’s own studio holdings and the museum expanded to include his former home and studio in Meudon, which preserves additional works, archives and personal rooms. Over the 20th century the institution became a central repository for scholarship on Rodin and a public museum for his work.

The museum sits in Paris’s 7th arrondissement near Les Invalides; the Hôtel Biron and gardens form the core site, with the Villa des Brillants located in nearby Meudon to the southwest of central Paris.

• Best time to visit: Grounds offer one of the best views of Rodin’s large-scale bronzes up close, with the garden often less crowded early morning on weekdays.
• Combined visit option: Audio guides and a coordinated ticket let you see both the Hôtel Biron galleries and the Meudon villa without buying separate entries.

What to See#

• Hôtel Biron: Main house in the 7th arrondissement, the 18th-century Hôtel Biron that contains the core indoor galleries with sketches, plaster casts, and finished bronzes dating to Auguste Rodin’s lifetime.
• Sculpture garden: Formal gardens surrounding the Hôtel Biron where large-scale bronzes including casts of The Thinker, The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais are displayed in outdoor settings.
• Villa des Brillants (Meudon): Villa des Brillants in Meudon, Rodin’s former home and studio preserved as part of the museum’s holdings and open for visits to view additional works and personal archives.

Musée Rodin is at the Hôtel Biron in central Paris. The closest metro stop is Varenne (Line 13), a 2-3 minute walk; Invalides (Line 8/13 and RER C) is also about a 5-10 minute walk from the museum.

The museum is easily reached by metro, bus, taxi or on foot from nearby central Paris neighbourhoods.

• Aim for day-of-week mornings right at opening or late-afternoon slots on weekdays to avoid the largest tour-group surges that hit around midday and midweek weekends.
• Buy a timed-entry ticket online in advance-this reliably reduces time spent in the ticket queue and lets you enter at your chosen slot to see popular works before crowds build.
• Don't rush the Hôtel Biron rooms: many visitors linger only in the garden around The Thinker and miss the upstairs galleries and period rooms inside the mansion, which display casts, drawings and smaller Bronzes.
• Enter via the main Rue de Varenne approach and then head straight to the garden; the open-air sculptures are spread out, so start in the far end of the garden (away from the entrance) where The Gates of Hell and some larger works draw fewer people early on.