The Gates of Hell

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“La Porte de l'Enfer” (The Gates of Hell) by Auguste Rodin
Musée d'Orsay
Rue de la Légion d'Honneur
Quartier Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, 7th arrondissement
Paris, July 2002

“The Gates of Hell (French: La Porte de l'Enfer) is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by the French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 metres high, 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep (19.7×13.1×3.3 ft) and contains 180 figures. Several casts of the work were made, which are now in various locations around the world. Rodin's original plaster model is in the Musée D’Orsay, Paris. The figures range from 15 centimetres (6 in) high up to more than one metre (3 ft). Several of the figures were also cast as independent free-standing statues. The sculpture was commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880. Rodin worked on and off on this project for thirty-seven years, continuously adding, removing, or altering over two hundred human figures on the doors, until his death in 1917. The Directorate asked for an inviting entrance to a planned Decorative Arts Museum with the theme being left to Rodin's selection. Even before this commission, Rodin had developed sketches of some of Dante's characters based on his admiration of Dante's Inferno. The Decorative Arts Museum was never built. Rodin worked on this project on the ground floor of the Hôtel Biron. Near the end of his life, Rodin donated sculptures, drawings and reproduction rights to the French government. In 1919, two years after his death, the Hôtel Biron became the Musée Rodin, housing a cast of The Gates of Hell and related works.” (The Gates of Hell, Wikipedia)