PHILADELPHIA — After two decades at the base of Philadelphia Museum of Art’s iconic steps, the city’s famed Rocky statue came down from his pedestal just before noon Wednesday.

The next time we see him, he’ll be inside the museum — a first the statue, which has called Philly home for more than 40 years.

Wednesday’s move saw Rocky placed inside the building for its inclusion in a forthcoming exhibition known as “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments.” Opening April 25, that exhibition will run through August, after which the statue will be installed at the top of the Art Museum’s steps.

By midmorning Wednesday, Rocky had been swaddled tightly in moving blankets that were secured with tape to protect the statue during the move. A large crane picked Rocky off his long-held mount, and gently laid him on his side on a wooden pallet for a flatbed truck ride up to the museum’s main building.

Few spectators stopped to watch the relocation Wednesday, and it went off with little fanfare. The base of the steps, as officials announced Tuesday, had been closed for safety, and closures from Kelly Drive to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive along Spring Garden Street were instituted.

The move, however, was the first in a series of relocations slated to take place throughout the year. The Rocky statue currently installed at the top of the museum’s steps, a loaner from actor Sylvester Stallone, will to go back to the star’s collection. And a statue of real-life boxing champ “Smokin’” Joe Frazier, now located at the South Philadelphia sports complex, will take over Rocky’s former home at the base of the steps.

The statue moves were proposed by city arts office Creative Philadelphia. Having both Frazier and Rocky represented at the museum, department officials have said, serves as a way to “create a respectful dialogue between two complementary representations of Philadelphia’s spirit.”

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