NEW YORK (CNN) -- There's a bit of Paris in New York this summer. Until the end of August, eight works by French sculptor Auguste Rodin are welcoming visitors to Rockefeller Center.

The sculptures rest in a mini-French garden blooming in the shadow of the city's skyscrapers, the result of the combined effort of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation and New York's Public Art Fund.

"We wanted you to be able to have a sense as a viewer that you were somewhere else, give you a little of the context of France and where they were created," says Art Fund president Susan Freedman.

Before his death in 1917, Rodin donated his entire estate to the French government -- under the condition the state establish a museum dedicated to his work. The Cantor Collection is the world's largest and most comprehensive private collection of the sculptor's work.

"My husband's entire idea about Rodin and art was to bring it to the public, where people could come and wander and just look at the sculpture from all angles," says Iris Cantor.

At Rockefeller Center, that goal is vividly brought to life for visitors to the Big Apple and the city's resident's alike.

Based on a report from CNN's Business and Travel and Beyond. The segment appears weekdays on Early Edition at 7 AM (ET) and on Morning News at 10 AM (ET).