Château de Compiègne, where the young Marie Antoinette was welcomed by Louis XVth upon her arrival in France from Austria, on May 14, 1770, has been recently revamped and its different drawing rooms and galleries are on top form especially since Rodolphe Rapetti, its Director, arrived two years ago. He loves cars and had the idea of this amazing exhibition … Read More
Striking Iron in Africa, a delicate art
There are two excellent exhibitions opening at Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, “Helena Rubinstein’s African art collection” and “Striking Iron, the Art of African blacksmiths”, but I have to admit, my weakness for the latter, which is a huge surprise and aesthetical shock. It was conceived by the Fowler museum at UCLA, which is a scientific partner of the museum … Read More
In Ecouen, Etienne Delaune, a master of printing!
Château d’Ecouen, the Museum of Renaissance, is probably the less visited and yet the most extraordinary of Paris’s suburban museums. Its collections of precious Murano glasses and French or Flemish tapestries are unique, and at the moment, a special exhibit projects a new light on Etienne Delaune, a printer born in Milan (French at the time) in 1518. His father, … Read More
2O th anniversary of the Prize for the Intelligence of the hand
Fondation Bettencourt Schueller is celebrating 20 years of what could be considered the greatest French award for Artisans, “The Prize for the Intelligence of the hand”. Started by Liliane Bettencourt, it is now run by her daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers who, very courageously attended the event with a broken foot! The joy and gratitude of thePrize winners was immense. They … Read More
Stuttgart, a window on a new world
There is a strange feeling about driving in a very large car park which only contains one brand, Mercedes cars. This is what happens when you drive a Mercedes and you enter the large Museum in Stuttgart. With a smile, you get special access… Cars and garages have a very prominent role in this city which was destroyed at the end … Read More
Citéco, a dream Neo Renaissance house turned into a tech nightmare
This is a building you’ve passed a hundred times while driving to CDG airport on boulevard Malesherbes. It used to be the prestige offices of Banque de France with a huge safe room surrounded by a moat! And before that, it was built in 1878, by architect Jules Février for Emile Gaillard, a member of the 19 th century banking … Read More
Revelations, Fine craft and creativity at Grand Palais
What pleased me at first was to hear Italian, Chinese, Italian, English and Spanish being spoken in the alleys. This new edition of “Revelations“, the fourth arts and craft biennale, is definitely International and artists, craftsmen, industrials mix happily under the beautiful decor of the Grand Palais. Here are the discoveries I made among ceramists, leather and rope weavers, wood … Read More
Spheres, the Earth and the Universe at BNF
It is an extraordinary exhibition that is presented at Bibliothèque Nationale de France after the Louvre Abu Dhabi. 2 500 years of representations of the atmosphere and the Earth from Antiquity to today. Two hundred pieces restitute all its nobility to the quest of discovering the universe which was started by Ptolemaeus with the first globes. The evolution of our … Read More