The renovation has restored the site to the original vision of its architect, Paul Cret and landscape architect Jacques Gréber. It included identifying the building’s original paint colours, stripping off layers of paint, and replicating the original linen cloth wall coverings in the main gallery.
Several of the Rodin sculptures that were brought inside during the 1960s to protect them from pollution are now back to their original garden locations, with the addition of protective coatings. All the sculptural figures have been returned to their original settings at the entrance, in building and gate niches, and outside in the gardens.
Faux-marble covered central gallery walls have been replaced with pale linen. The small octagonal side galleries are now washed in Pompeian red, and not yellow or olive green. Paint has been removed from wood appointments and furnishings and from the imitation Caen stone of entrance vestibules left and right.
The galleries inside have been reinstalled to emphasise the importance of ‘The Gates of Hell’ as a continuing source of inspiration to Rodin and to explore Rodin’s public monuments and his Balzac sculpture.
