About the Museum

Jules E. Mastbaum, Philadelphia's great movie theater magnate and one of its best-known philanthropists, began collecting works by Auguste Rodin in 1923 with the expressed intent of founding a museum to enrich the lives of his fellow citizens. He set about assembling a complete view of Rodin's work, acquiring not only finished bronzes, but plaster studies as well as drawings, prints, letters, and books. By the time of his death in 1926, Mastbaum had brought together the greatest Rodin collection outside of Paris. He had also commissioned two great French Neoclassical architects working in Philadelphia, Paul Cret and by Jacques Gréber, to collaborate on a museum and garden, but did not live to see it completed.

The Rodin Museum, which opened to the public in 1929, houses 124 sculptures, including bronze casts of the artist's greatest works: The Thinker, perhaps the most famous sculpture in the world; The Burghers of Calais, his most heroic and moving historical tribute; Eternal Springtime, one of the most powerful works dealing with human love; powerful monuments to leading French intellectuals such as Apotheosis of Victor Hugo; and the culminating creation of his career, The Gates of Hell, on which the artist worked from 1880 until his death in 1917.

About the Museum's Garden

Over 60,000 visitors annually make the trip to see this spectacular Museum and the gardens which surround it. Designed by Jacques Gréber as part of the Museum's overall plan, the Rodin Gardens have remained a calm respite from the clatter of the city, even as the Parkway has changed over the years.

As Rodin himself knew, the appreciation of works of art is heightened by nature—and that is the goal of the Rodin Gardens. The reflecting pool in the garden courtyard evokes calm and echoes the cool beauty that the visitor will experience within the building.

For more information, please contact the Rodin Museum at (215) 568-6026.

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