Copy of Rodin's "The Kiss"
1929
Henri Gréber, French, 1855 - 1941. After Auguste Rodin, French, 1840 - 1917
The Kiss originated as a design for Rodin’s The Gates of Hell. The embracing figures appear in the lower left corner of the model of The Gates, where they represent two characters from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Rodin did not include them in the final work, however, instead exhibiting enlarged versions of the sculpture as independent statues.
Although scaled for outdoor public display and among the most popular of Rodin’s works, The Kiss was not installed outdoors until 1998. A bronze version stands in the Tuileries Garden in Paris.
The Rodin Museum, located at 2151 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, holds the largest collection of works by Auguste Rodin outside of Paris. Opened in 1929, the museum is administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and holds a collection more than 120 of the French master’s sculptures, alongside drawings, paintings and studies. The museum and its collection was a gift of movie-theatre magnate Jules Mastbaum who commissioned French architects Paul Cret and Jacques Gréber to design the museum building and gardens.
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