Coming Up · Faith · Art · Museums · Society · Paris
A triptych by the Belgian Symbolist Léon Frédéric entitled "The Ages of the Worker", painted between 1895 and 1897. It belongs to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay and is currently on show at the "Brussels 1900" exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris.
NB! · Observations · Paris · Humour
May things turn out better for you than they have for this Parisian flowerbed
Art · Museums · Paris · People
Behind the creation of the Statue of Liberty lies a grand financial epic. The monument's makers resorted to crowdfunding long before the term existed, although in those years many monuments were built by subscription, and anyone who wished could contribute his mite. So it was in this case:
Archive · Books · Madrid · Mores · Paris · People
Everyone remembers that Coco Chanel was a collaborator and worked for the Abwehr, that is, for German military intelligence? This is not conjecture or gossip but a well-documented part of her biography. So, she not only tried, with the help of her fascist patrons, to wrest a perfume company
Art · Museums · Mores · Paris
The bronze sculpture "Ancient Sacrifice" from the Louvre's collection at the exhibition "Jeanne du Barry. The Invention of the Favourite" at Marly. The group has been placed in an interior setting rather than a display case, just as in the eighteenth century, when such
Archaeology · Museums · Heritage · Science · Society · Paris
In Pushkin's “Autumn” the grove sheds its last leaves; in France this October it was rather shop windows and town halls that were being shaken, and since this coincided with my customary Parisian holiday, a good part of the month in the channel passed to the sound of
Art · Society · Paris
French galleries demand compensation from Art Basel Paris for the early closure of the fair The Art Basel Paris fair was held at the Grand Palais in Paris and was due to run until Sunday 25 October 2026. On the evening of 22 October the organisers informed participants that the
Coming Up · Art · Museums · Paris
The Musée d'Orsay is currently showing "Mary Cassatt: An Independent", timed to the centenary year of her death. It is strange that, in a hundred years, this is essentially the first major retrospective of Cassatt at a French national museum. Mary Cassatt was born in 1844
Aristocracy · Art · Museums · Mores · Paris
James Tissot, "Women of Paris: The Circus Lover", 1885, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Tissot's "Woman in Paris" series consisted of 15 large canvases in which the artist portrayed Parisian women of different classes and occupations: a shop girl, a bridesmaid, a society lady
The East · Archaeology · Art · Museums · Paris
An ancient Egyptian ritual statuette made for a high-ranking official named Ptahmose, who lived in the New Kingdom, in the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II. Ptahmose was a royal scribe, steward of the royal estates and mayor of Memphis. The shabti, that is, the funerary figurine, of Ptahmose
Books · Paris · Nature · Reportage
There is a classic English plot in which a village flower and vegetable show becomes the event of the year. In Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth, master of Blandings Castle, will go to considerable lengths to see his pumpkin take first prize at the Shrewsbury show. If this strikes you as an
Art · Monarchies · Museums · Paris
Now that is what one calls historical correspondence: the original hangings in Marie Antoinette's apartments at Fontainebleau and the upholstery of the armchair in Duplessis's portrait of Louis XVI of 1776-77. The fabric itself, according to the curators, was woven in 1731. An exhibition has