MAD at its best !

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Johann Christian Neuber, snuffbox, ca 1765-1770, Dresden. Throughout the museum pieces given by the Marchesa are signaled by this pink lady

If you don’t want to queue at the Louvre during this holiday season, try MAD, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, around the corner, which has four interesting exhibitions at the moment, including one on their very special benefactor, Marchesa Arconati Visconti (1840-1923), who inherited a large fortune from her Italian husband when he died, in 1876, of typhoid fever. She bequeathed hundreds of objects to the Museum and to the Louvre as well as to Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon. Going through the galleries on a treasure hunt, (every item she gave is signaled with a pink label), you will rediscover many period rooms and the newly lit jewelry gallery, while following the steps of this great art historian and generous collector.  The visit conducted by curator Anne Forray-Carlier, deputy director of MAD, was fascinating.Read More

Mes chaussettes rouges, socks, chic and shock ….

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Jacques Tiberghien and Vincent Metzger, the two partners of Mes Chaussettes rouges

It all started with the Italian brand Gammarelli which became famous over the years as the provider of red socks for the Cardinals in the Vatican and French Prime minister Edouard Balladur. Two young graduates from business school, Jacques Tiberghien and Vincent Metzger,  decided ten years ago to acquire the company and have since travelled a long way around the world. Their cashmere (49€)  or vicuna (520€) socks are famous and they now have a magical machine which will make your cotton Lisle socks with the colors of thread you choose. You can wear a  pair of socks that is unique in the world! The shop is a delight to visit but you can also order on line and be delivered in 48 hours. Read More

Bibliothèque Mazarine, a mythical place

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“Il Prof”, Cosimo Mazzoni in Sicily

Cosimo Marco Mazzoni, a law professor based in Fiesole, died four weeks ago in his sleep in Paris. He had such a passion for Bibliothèque Mazarine, at the heart of l’Institut, that he acquired an apartment a few blocs away, so he could be sure to walk there every day when he was in Paris. He taught at Università di Siena, at Yale University and at Université de Paris X, Nanterre. He wrote many of his books on bioethics law within the cozy wood paneled walls of La Mazarine.  His latest work, “Quale Dignità, Il lungo viaggio di un’idea” was published last Spring.

By coincidence, Marguerite de Merode, who lives in Rome, inaugurated an exhibition of photographs there last week, and I was irresistibly attracted to it, in memory of Cosimo. I must admit it is a delight to enter this quiet and refined space, where everyone can go and study for 15€ a year. Read More

Bordallo Pinheiro could solve your Christmas presents

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The display of the Boulevard Saint Germain shop is particularly attractive

I always spot the wonderful shop windows on boulevard Saint Germain, of Bordallo Pinheiro from the 84 bus which is my favorite transport to the Latin quarter and I never stop. So this time, I got off and visited the shop at length. It is the perfect china shop for Christmas presents, everything looks familiar to visitors of Portugal and their bowls, jugs, tea pots are so jolly that you cannot leave the shop without an item. For a very modest sum!Read More

Christian de Portzamparc is a painter at Kamel Mennour

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Christian de Portzamparc, “Il y eut les plages”, pigmented ink and acrylic on canvas, 2019

If you have a passion, like I do, for Pritzker Prize laureate Christian de Portzamparc, you will be curious to discover his new ink and acrylic paintings at Galerie Kamel Mennour rue Saint André des Arts. They are very architectural of course, with a strong sense of space and geometry, and a very special light which illuminates dust, gaz particules and partitions. In the two other galleries, on rue du Pont de Lodi and avenue Matignon, Tadashi Kawamata shows his fascinating  “Destructions” in grand style.Read More

Nils-Udo, from Bavaria to rue Récamier

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The artist, Nils-Udo, on the first floor of the Black Bamboo installation

It’s always moving to meet an artist you’ve admired for many years and my encounter with Nils-Udo and his wife Lisa, at Fondation EDF, started with our exchanging recollections of Prien am Chiemsee, a small village where I studied German some twenty years ago and near where he lives. He was raised in the North of the region, in Schloss Klingenberg, in Lower Franconia, where nature was omnipresent, and he has created a spectacular installation with very special lighting, an art which is at the chore of EDF’s (Electricité de France) workmanship. With more than a hundred bamboos selected in Anduze, Gard, and seven black marble eggs set on white marble gravel, the visitor is startled as he enters the dark room. And entrance is free.Read More

Perfect reads for Christmas

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The Author of “Pour le plaisir et pour le pire”, Laure Hillerin, at Hôtel Swann

If you like to spend a cozy Christmas by the fireplace, here are a few books that you might want to be offered. A biography of Boni de Castellane and his rich American wife Anna Gould, “Pour le plaisir et pour le pire” by Laure Hillerin. Empress Joséphine’s herbarium finely studied by Catherine de Bourgoing with wonderful drawings by Redouté and Bonpland or Ventenat and a book on architect Rena Dumas who created the decors for all Hermès boutiques, Christie’s Paris and many prestigious offices around the world, published by Editions Norma, the cream of the cream of design publishers.Read More

Lillian across America by foot, and a film

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Lillian Alling walks through desert territories

In 1926, Lillian Alling, a Russian citizen who lived in New York, decided she would walk back to her country through the Bering Straights. Her adventures over two years of deambulation, are filmed by Austrian director Andreas Horvath, in a two hour long tale of her American and Canadian crossing, Lilian. The Polish actress, Patricia Planik does not utter a word and yet is so lively. One understands her strange flight and is scared for her all along. It is a beautiful tale of survival in a world without money, beds, nor food. And a superior camerawork by the director himself.Read More