Echoes of Rodin in Philadelphia

Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum this month is mounting a fresh exhibition of the late French master’s works to mark its 75th anniversary.

One highlight will be a 37-sheet, leather-bound sketchbook of pencil and charcoal drawings done by Auguste Rodin as a student around 1860. They include diverse studies of decorative figures, landscapes, street scenes and even animals, such as horses at the Boulevard Saint-Marcel market in Paris.

The original sketchbook, which is not usually displayed, can be viewed under glass. A computer screen will also present copies of its pages in an interactive program for visitors.

From the Musee Rodin in Paris, on special loan for the anniversary, comes “Aurora and Tithonus,” a 1906 marble sculpture nearly 4 feet wide depicting the Greco-Roman myth of the goddess of dawn who fell in love with the son of the king of Troy.

The show matches the museum’s plaster of “Young Mother in the Grotto” with a marble version of the work from a private collector and offers other groupings based on common themes, such as Rodin’s depictions of hands.

Most of the exhibition draws from the Rodin Museum’s 128-piece collection of bronze, plaster, marble, terra cotta and wax sculptures by Rodin, said spokesman Frank Luzi. Among them is “The Thinker,” outside the museum’s entrance.

Philadelphia was the first U.S. city to exhibit works by Rodin, who was born in 1840 and died in 1917. He sent eight of his sculptures to the 1876 Centennial Exposition, which marked 100 years of American independence. The sculptor was disappointed that he received neither medals nor press notice then.

Several years after Rodin died, Jules Mastbaum, a Philadelphia philanthropist and movie-theater mogul, began collecting his works. Mastbaum’s efforts to house his collection led to the creation of the Rodin Museum in 1929. It is operated by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“Echoes: Celebrating 75 Years of Rodin in Philadelphia” opens Friday and runs through May 31. Suggested admission to the museum, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, is $3 per person; (215) 763-8100, www.rodinmuseum.org.