Life in Bronze: Rodin in Philadelphia

P H I L A D E L P H I A, Sept. 26 -- In a gallery and gardens along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is one of the city’s best kept secrets and most valuable treasures: the Rodin Museum.

Assembled by movie magnate and philanthropist Jules E. Mastbaum, the museum contains the greatest collection of works by French sculptor Auguste Rodin outside of Paris.

“There are a lot of great Rodins around the country. But for the really high concentration — if you want to sink your teeth into Rodin — this is where to do it,” said Joe Rishel, curator of the Rodin Museum for the past 29 years.

The gallery is one of the few private museums in the world dedicated to a single artist. The gateway and gardens reproduce the facade of the Chateau d’Issy, which had been reconstructed on Rodin’s property in Meudon, France. Two French neoclassical architects from the University of Pennsylvania built the gallery specifically for the collection, and the lofty marble interior seems to conform around some of the sculptures.

Visitors are confronted by Rodin’s two greatest masterpieces at the front entrance. “The Thinker,” one of the most famous sculptures in the world, holds vigil outside the front gates at a location that in Meudon serves as Rodin’s headstone. The bronze cast of a man with his head on his hand also anchors “The Gates of Hell,” which is installed on the outside of the building between the two front doors.

“The Gates of Hell” was the culminating creation of Rodin’s career and dominates the Philadelphia museum. In addition to the 20-foot-tall panorama of writhing figures at the entrance, more than a dozen pieces of individual figures are featured in the museum showing Rodin’s process as he worked on the sculpture from 1880 until his death in 1917.

Rishel described “The Gates of Hell” as “the Sistine Chapel for the 19th century.” Visitor Jenny Chung, 28, said it was both “ugly and beautiful.” Other visitors just rest out of the sun beneath the oversized doorway and stare.