Paris > Museums > Musée Bourdelle

Musée Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle was Rodin's assistant and a successful sculptor in his own right. His home in Montparnasse is now a city-owned museum that displays his marble, plaster, and bronze statuary.

ABOVE: The museum's Great Hall features a sampling of Antoine Bourdelle's larger sculptures.

By Durant Imboden

If you're a sculpture enthusiast, where do you go after you've visited the Rodin Museum in Paris? One possibility is to spend 30 minutes to an hour at the Musée Bourdelle, a small museum dedicated to the works of Antoine Bourdelle (who worked in Auguste Rodin's studio for 15 years and later taught Alberto Giacometti and Henry Matisse).

The museum, which is run by the city of Paris, occupies the studio, apartment, and gardens where Antoine Bourdelle lived and worked from 1885 until the late 1920s.

It's an impressive space, and it displays a representative sampling of the more than 800 sculptures, 200 paintings and pastels, and 1,000 drawings that Bourdelle left behind upon his death in 1929.

Visitor information:

The Musée Bourdelle is at 18 rue Antoine-Bourdelle in the 15th arrondissement, slightly west of the Montparnasse Tower and the Gare Montparnasse.

The closest Métro stations are Montparnasse-Bienvenüe (Lines 4, 6, 12, 13) and Falguières (Line 12).

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for occasional public holidays. Admission is free.

To double-check admission times, or to look up bus routes and the nearest Vélib bike-sharing station, see the the museum's "Useful Information" page. 

More photos from the Musée Bourdelle:

BELOW: From the industrial-looking building entrance on rue Antoine-Bourdelle (see inset photo above), you'll walk through a paved and landscaped area to the museum.

BELOW: The museum's main courtyard and garden exhibits several of the sculptor's larger works. (In the top photo, you can see the Tour Montparnasse looming over the neighborhood.)

BELOW: If you'd like to sketch or merely rest your feet, you can settle into one of the canvas lounge chairs overlooking the courtyard.

BELOW: From an arcaded terrace upstairs, you can enjoy a view of the main courtyard/garden and a set of bas-reliefs.

BELOW: The Great Hall is illuminated by skylights and features a variety of sculptures by Antoine Bourdelle.

BELOW: The former atelier and a 1992 extension let you view the Antoine Bourdelle collection in whatever order you'd like.

BELOW:  A museum video shows the many steps involved in casting a bronze sculpture from the artist's work.

 Other useful Web sites:

• Musée Bourdelle (official site)

• Artland: Musée Bourdelle article

• Operas and Cycling and Whatnot: Bourdelle Museum blog post

About the author:

Durant Imboden is a professional travel writer, book author, and editor who focuses on European cities and transportation.

After 4-1/2 years of covering European travel topics for About.com, Durant and Cheryl Imboden co-founded Europe for Visitors (including Paris for Visitors) in 2001. The site has earned "Best of the Web" honors from Forbes and The Washington Post.

For more information, see About our site, press clippings, and reader testimonials.

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