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# Auguste Rodin worked for 37 years on “The Gates of Hell”, commissioned in 1880
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-1880-rodenu-zakazali-vkhodnoi-portal-muzeia-dekorativnogo-iskusstva-kotoryi-planirovali-vozvesti-v-parizhe-na-meste-sgorevshego-dvortsa-orse/
- Published: 2022-04-16T16:13:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:56:41.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Art, Museums, Paris

In 1880 Rodin was commissioned to make the entrance portal for the Museum of Decorative Arts, planned for Paris on the site of the burnt-out Palais d'Orsay. But Rodin failed to finish the work on time and returned the advance. The museum, however, had no need of ceremonial doors after all: it was decided to build a railway station in its place. Rodin, for his part, carried on with the portal, which acquired the name "The Gates of Hell". In all, Auguste Rodin laboured over "The Gates of Hell" for 37 years without ever completing them. In 1986 a museum, the Musée d'Orsay, was at last built on that very spot, and a cast of Rodin's unfinished project is now displayed there. As for the gates cast from that plaster model, they have scattered among museums all over the world

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_6350@16-04-2022_19-13-55.jpg)