★★★★★ 5.0
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Musée Rodin
August 4th, 1919 - excited visitors rushed through these grand doors to see France's very FIRST self-funded museum! You're standing at the Hôtel Biron on Rue de Varenne, where something amazing happened just eleven years earlier. This fancy 18th-century mansion was falling apart - moss covered the steps, paint was peeling everywhere - when the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin moved in with his artist friends like Henri Matisse! Before Rodin, this was actually a girls' boarding school run by nuns for 84 whole years - that's like your entire life times twelve! Now as you walk inside, you'll discover Rodin's secret: he scattered nearly 400 sculptures throughout these rooms and the massive garden that's bigger than SEVEN soccer fields combined, creating the world's most incredible outdoor art treasure hunt!
Did You Know?
- The Musée Rodin in Paris is housed in the Hôtel Biron, an 18th-century mansion where Rodin lived and worked, and which was later saved from demolition when Rodin donated his entire collection—including works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir—to the French State on the condition the building become a museum dedicated to his art, ensuring the preservation of both his legacy and the historic site.
- Before becoming a museum, the Hôtel Biron was a creative hub for famous artists and writers, including Jean Cocteau, Henri Matisse, Isadora Duncan, and Rainer Maria Rilke, who were among the building's tenants after it was vacated by a religious order, making it a fascinating intersection of art, literature, and Parisian cultural history.
- The museum’s gardens are an open-air gallery, displaying iconic sculptures like The Thinker and The Kiss in natural settings, and also hide a small lake and a casual restaurant, offering a peaceful, immersive experience that blends art, nature, and Parisian ambiance—perfect for families and children to explore.