Auguste Rodin, Hand of Rodin Holding a Torso, bronze, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Rodin MuseumBenjamin Franklin Parkway / Fairmount

Rodin's Hands

Now showing4 February 2022 – 31 January 2027$15

Fifteen bronzes and plasters, many rare or unique to Philadelphia, trace Rodin's obsession with the expressive hand, from The Cathedral and The Hand of God to Two Hands.

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On now All of November 2026

Shortly before Rodin died in November 1917, his assistant Paul Cruet made a plaster cast of the sculptor's right hand and set a miniature female torso in its palm. It has a prominent spot here, and it sums up the habit this show is about: Rodin kept "thousands and thousands" of plaster hands, feet and heads in drawers and kept recombining them.

Fifteen bronzes and plasters, several unique to Philadelphia, fill the central gallery. You walk in and meet the open right hand of The Hand of God, then find the same hand twice more outside, raised by two brothers in The Burghers of Calais. Stanford scientists have proposed that the model for one of the curled hands had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

Reviewing it in 2022, 34th Street Magazine found Two Hands the most moving piece but faulted the layout: works pushed against walls, mixed in with the permanent collection, with little signage. Admission is a suggested $15, free for under-19s. Open Friday to Monday, 10am to 5pm.

Look for

Hand of Rodin Holding a Torso
A plaster life cast of Rodin's own right hand, made by his assistant just before the sculptor's death, cradling a tiny female torso from his studio.
The Cathedral
Two right hands stand upright with their fingertips interlocked, a shape 34th Street Magazine likened to Gothic rib vaulting.
The Secret
Installed close to The Cathedral and slightly larger: two palms held apart by an unidentified object, fingertips close enough to touch but not meeting.
Two Hands
A slender hand rests on a larger one; the Paris plaster is inscribed "Hands of Rodin and Rose Beuret", and this bronze exists only in Philadelphia.
The Hand of God
A hand emerges from solid stone to cradle a rock from which a man and a woman rise, half-formed.