The Rodin Museum, restored

Auguste Rodin's masterpieces— The Kiss, The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell— are back where they're supposed to be, at least for those of us on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. After an exceptional three-year restoration, the largest collection of Rodin sculpture and drawings outside of Paris is once again on display as its collector intended.

The Philadelphia mogul Jules Mastbaum (1872-1926) began building a real estate fortune at the dawn of the 20th Century and segued into the fledgling motion picture theater business soon after. By the 1920s the Stanley Company, named for Mastbaum's brother who died in 1918, was the largest movie theater operator in the U.S. (It later merged with Warner Brothers.)

His Mastbaum Theater at 20th and Market Streets, one of the country's largest and most lavish movie palaces, abounded in marble, gold leaf, leaded glass, tapestries, statues, paintings and huge chandeliers. Elevators led to all eight levels. The auditorium had a 75-piece pit orchestra and a corps de ballet of 32. (It was demolished in 1958.)

On a visit to Paris in 1923, Mastbaum discovered Rodin's works. The sculptor had died in 1917, willing his estate to the French government and giving permission to make casts of his works after his death. Mastbaum began buying bronze casts, some of which had been made during Rodin's lifetime; others were cast expressly for Mastbaum from Rodin's original plaster molds.

Growing up with statues

The Gates of Hell is the most notable example. Rodin worked on its panorama of figures for more than three decades, but this masterpiece hadn't been cast before his death. In 1925 Mastbaum paid for two castings, the first for Philadelphia and the second for the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Mastbaum's daughter Peggy Solomon, a friend of my father's, used to tell me stories of how she lived amidst Rodin sculpture in her parents' Rittenhouse Square home. The treasures sat there before Mastbaum built what is now the Rodin Museum, and the home's floors had to be reinforced to bear the weight of the sculptures.

Mastbaum planned a building designed specifically to house his Rodin collection in Philadelphia. He commissioned two French neoclassical architects— the landscape expert Jacques Gréber, who conceived the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and Paul Philippe Crét, who designed the Rodin Museum building in Beaux Arts style. (This was the same Paul Philippe Crét who was then concurrently designing a gallery for Albert C. Barnes in Merion.) Among the architects who worked on the project was the young Louis Kahn.

Jules Mastbaum died suddenly in 1926, and his widow supervised the completion of the museum building, which opened in November 1929.

Through the windows

Now the Art Museum, which manages the Rodin Museum, has restored its interior to what Crét intended. Walls that had been covered over by faux marble are now uncovered. Extraneous paint has been removed from original Pompeian red interior surfaces. The special plaster and lime cement that Crét designated to imitate French limestone was later covered by paint, which now has been expunged. Sculptures that haven't been arrayed together for more than half a century have been cleaned and replaced where Crét visualized them.

One of the most glorious things about the restored museum is the interplay between its interior and exterior. Crét intended Rodin's large pieces to stand outside, under trees, but also to be visible through the windows to visitors inside the building. Now that's where they are, including a monumental sculpture that Mastbaum couldn't acquire: Three Shades, on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation of New York. The Cantors, themselves Rodin devotees, produced a 1982 documentary film about the casting of his Gates of Hell.

The museum's formal French garden, fountain and reflecting pool also have been restored to their original look.

Welcome to Hell

The Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, links the museum's inside and outside. On the one hand, it stands as towering bronze doors on the exterior face of the museum; on the other, some of Rodin's freestanding bronze and marble incarnations from that large masterpiece are inside the building.

The Thinker evolved from the focal point atop The Gates into a freestanding sculpture. Now two separate versions of the famous Thinker are on view, one inside and one in the garden. In effect (as associate curator Jennifer Thompson suggests), a visitor can now pass through The Gates of Hell on the way into the building, then examine the related figures inside, and then reconsider the whole tableau upon leaving.

Jules Mastbaum's approach to collecting and housing art diverged sharply from that of his better-known contemporary, Dr. Albert C. Barnes. Peggy Mastbaum Solomon remembered her father talking about his desire to enrich the lives of his fellow citizens by placing Rodin's art in an easily accessible museum. Barnes frowned on unlimited access, to put it mildly. How ironic that both collections are now housed across the street from each other.