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Museum · Paris 7e Arrondissement, Paris
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| Sunday | 10:00 – 18:30 |
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Read from the OpenStreetMap access tags; anything not listed has no tag recorded.
Set the group type to family in the planner and the day window contracts to about three quarters of a solo day.
The Musee Rodin occupies the Hotel Biron, an eighteenth-century mansion on Rue de Varenne in the 7th arrondissement that had already passed through use as a convent school before the state let it out cheaply as artists' studios in the early 1900s; tenants there at various points included Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau and the dancer Isadora Duncan.
Auguste Rodin took ground-floor rooms in 1908 and, as the state weighed demolishing the building, negotiated to leave his entire collection to France in exchange for the state converting it into a museum of his work instead. He died in 1917 before it opened.
It opened to the public in 1919 and now holds around 6,600 sculptures plus roughly 8,000 drawings, prints and photographs, most of them by Rodin himself, alongside a second, quieter site at his former country house in Meudon on the edge of Paris.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
The 3,000 square metre garden holds the large bronzes: The Thinker, originally conceived as a small figure of Dante above The Gates of Hell before Rodin enlarged it into a standalone work; The Gates of Hell itself, an unfinished doorway carrying around 200 figures that Rodin reworked for nearly four decades without ever casting a final bronze in his lifetime; and Balzac, a monument the Societe des Gens de Lettres rejected in 1898 for looking unfinished, and which was not cast in bronze and installed publicly until 1939.
Inside the mansion, the ground floor holds The Age of Bronze, the piece that launched Rodin's career after critics accused him of casting it from a live model rather than sculpting it, and The Kiss in marble. Upper floors hold drawings, Rodin's personal collection of antiquities he bought for inspiration, and a room dedicated to Camille Claudel with The Waltz and The Mature Age.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Allow two hours: about forty minutes in the garden among the bronzes and the rest inside the mansion across its two floors of drawings and smaller sculpture. The garden alone, on a garden-only ticket, is closer to forty-five minutes since the bronzes are the main draw and there is no house to walk through afterwards.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 18:30, closed Monday, checked against the museum's own site on 24 August 2026.
The garden is quietest in the first hour after opening; midday draws the largest crowd because the garden doubles as a lunch stop for visitors also doing the nearby Musee d'Orsay or the Musee de l'Armee at Les Invalides on the same day.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Full admission is 14 EUR per person, checked on the museum's own site on 24 August 2026. A garden-only ticket is sold separately and costs less than the combined ticket; the exact garden-only price is not recorded here, so confirm it at the door or online before relying on it. Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month from October to March, per the standard rule most French national museums apply, though this specific museum's own current confirmation of that rule was not checked here.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
The nearest station is Varenne on line 13, which sits almost on top of the museum entrance on Rue de Varenne, close enough that the station's platform decoration itself references The Thinker. Invalides, served by lines 8 and 13 plus the RER C, is a ten-minute walk and is also the stop for the Musee de l'Armee, making the two easy to combine on the same walk.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Large bags and backpacks go through a security check at the entrance and may need to be checked at the cloakroom before the garden. The garden's gravel paths are uneven for a wheelchair or pushchair after rain, and the garden-only ticket does not include re-entry into the house.
The Thinker and The Gates of Hell sit in direct sun for most of the day, which flattens their surface detail in photographs; the marble Kiss indoors is roped off at a fixed distance rather than freely approachable, and some upper-floor rooms limit visitor numbers at busy times.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
The garden bronzes are outdoors and unrestricted for personal photography at any hour the garden is open, and the low afternoon sun through the surrounding trees is the best light for The Thinker. Indoor photography without flash is generally tolerated in French national museums of this kind, but the museum's own current policy statement was not found during this check, so confirm any tripod or professional-camera rule with staff at the entrance rather than assuming it matches the garden's open policy.
Checked 2026-08-24 · Source
Auguste Rodin himself, on his death in 1917, in exchange for the state converting the Hotel Biron, where he had worked since 1908, into a museum of his work.
Yes, in a dedicated room, including The Waltz and The Mature Age, shown alongside Rodin's work rather than as a footnote to it.
Yes, a garden-only ticket is sold separately from the full admission ticket that also covers the house.
10:00 to 18:30, Tuesday through Sunday. The museum is closed on Monday.
Full admission is 14 EUR per person.
Varenne on line 13, right by the entrance on Rue de Varenne.
The commissioning body rejected Rodin's 1898 plaster for looking unfinished; it was not cast in bronze and installed publicly until 1939, more than two decades after his death.
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Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·
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