The Queen is celebrated in Paris and so is Gene Kelly

parisdiaArt, Flowers and gardens, Happy moments1 Comment

Jazz at the British Embassy with the Scottish regiment

Attending the Queen’s platinum jubilee’s party at the British Embassy was a true joy, especially since the weather was perfect, the lawn was mowed just high enough so that we would not feel we were killing it and the staff was totally charming including the young boy and girl scouts from Bougival who were serving hors d’oeuvre. Dame Menna Rawlings, the Ambassador, and her husband Mark, were dutifully saying hello to thousands of guests and the Royal regiment of Scotland was playing jazz  from 6.30 onwards. I immediately rushed to the garden, drank a Pimm’s, my secret passion, and ran into Robert Carsen who was studying the Scottish regiment’s uniform for his next opera of Bellini’s The Capulets and the Montagues at Opera Bastille in 2023. Read More

At Bibliothèque Nationale, XIX th century explorers and Champollion make us dream

parisdiaHistory, PhotographyLeave a Comment

Joseph Martin with a guide toungouse, 1884 BnF, Société de géographie ©BnF, SG

What can be more exciting than to follow the adventures of 19 th century explorers in Darfour and Ouadaï, Tibet, the Amazon or Sénégal with their guides, wifes, helpers? Thanks to the 200 th anniversary of Société de Géographie founded on December 15, 1821, whose archives are kept at Bibliothèque Nationale, BnF has organized a beautiful exhibition of two hundreds portraits, photographs, maps, drawings and travel books on the theme of the explorer. “Faces of XIX th century explorations, from myth to history”. Next door another show gives every detail on how Champollion translated the Pierre de Rosette and wrote the first dictionaries for hieroglyphs.

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Musée Antoine Vivenel in Compiègne, what a find!

parisdiaArt, Furniture3 Comments

Léonard I Limosin, (attr) Hercules, Enamel from Limoges, XVI th century

When Mathieu Deldicque mentioned that he had borrowed an ink portrait of a lady from Musée Vivenel for his major Dürer exhibition at Chantilly (opening on June 4), I became intrigued. Who was this Antoine Vivenel (1799-1862)?  So I went with my friend expert of the city of Compiègne, Garance Aufaure, and I found amazing treasures in this municipal museum, which is too often eclipsed by the Imperial palace. This real estate/architect entrepreneur made money under the reign of Louis Philippe and started collecting Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities. He also collected ivory chess pieces, and religious  Medieval works, Renaissance Italian faïence and Limoges enamels by Leonard Limosin. And a room is devoted to local paintings of Donjon de Vez by Régnier, and Compiègne’s 1732 bridge. The Hôtel de Songeons-Bicquilley, where the collection is shown, is a charming museum full of surprising discoveries. Read More

A romantic concert, a book signing and Monet’s Japanese woodblock prints…What a week!

parisdiaAuction, Books, Performing arts1 Comment

Diane de Beauvau Craon signed more than two hundred books at Galignani’s

When you receive an invitation to a concert in a “Viennese salon 1820-1830”, you worry that it won’t be genuine. But when I arrived at Mairie du 9e arrondissement and sat facing a beautiful Rosenberger 1820 piano owned by the Roman pianist Luca Montebugnoli, I suddenly realized how romantic and charming the evening would be. What I could not guess beforehand is that Benjamin d’Anfray would overwhelm the audience with his “Aufforderung zum Tanze” by Carl Maria von Weber, that Edoardo Torbianelli would glitter in Schubert’s “Klavierstücke in e flat major” and that the three pianists would have a huge success in the “Fantaisie in F minor for four hands” by Schubert which they played alternatively. Read More

Couture photography, a Franco Greek wedding, golf and art in Provence

parisdiaArt, Flowers and gardens, Golf4 Comments

Tunga, “Portals Psicopompos”, 2011 with the new Oscar Niemeyer building in the back with Château La Coste vineyards

I was lured to Provence by a series of beautiful events, Jean Luce Huré‘s exhibition of fashion photography in Bargemon and a glorious Greek orthodox wedding in Grimaud. Both were very successful and charming and there was much more to be expected. A great golf game at Beauvallon with the young pro Benjamin Reinarz and the visit of Château La Coste, the contemporary art and architecture park near Aix-en-Provence. Read More

Victor Prouvé, the father of… in Issy-les-Moulineaux

parisdiaArchitecture, Art4 Comments

Box, La Parure, 1894, with Camille Martin, Nancy, Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy

Most of us know Jean Prouvé‘s work as a furniture designer and an architect who revolutionized low income housing in France between the wars. This new exhibition at Musée de la Carte à Jouer (the museum of playing cards) in Issy-les-Moulineaux is about his father’s work, Victor Prouvé, 1858-1943, who started as Emile Gallé‘s accomplice in designing vases and became a successful public space decorator as a member of l’Ecole de Nancy, the movement which introduces art in the industrial process. He is the author of a large fresco in the staircase of Issy’s townhall called “La Vie”, life. All the preparatory drawings are shown here with book bindings and numerous Art Nouveau objects which throw a new light on this artist, whose reputation is slightly obscured by his son’s fame.Read More

Drawing Now, Paris Print Fair, Menart, we don’t have enough eyes to catch everything…

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Dany Leriche, Map of Cuba, 2020 at Galerie Polysémie, Marseille

While Drawing Now, the contemporary drawing fair, is always full of wonderful discoveries at Carreau du Temple, the new Paris Print Fair was also of high quality at Réfectoire du Couvent des Cordeliers but Menart (Middle East and North Africa Fair) was disappointing at Maison Cornette de Saint Cyr. It gave galleries from abroad and from the French provinces an opportunity to get noticed by the very International crowd of visitors. There is not one hotel room to be found in Paris at the moment…Read More

Salon du Dessin, MAD’s new Prud’hon, what a festival of great discoveries

parisdiaArt1 Comment

Lagneau, Old man with a fur hat, ca 1762, Didier Aaron

Salon du Dessin is always a glamorous gathering of American, British, German and Italian collectors who meet in the small space of La Bourse and gossip about the International Drawing market. I loved running into Hervé Aaron and Alan Salz who came from New York and were showing four gouaches of Pavillon de Bagatelle, by Louis Bélanger and Louis-Gabriel Moreau, probably ordered by Comte d’Artois in 1785. They also had a charming sanguine by Greuze, a chic Eugene Lami of the Rothschilds and the Pereire at a party and a quirky portrait of an old man by Lagneau… At Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Audrey Gay-Mazuel and Bénédicte Gady were showing exceptional new Prud’hon drawings, Musée du Grand Siècle run by Alexandre Gady (her husband) was exhibiting a choice of drawings from the Pierre Rosenberg collection of 3 502, bequeathed to the museum.  Read More