Architecture · Museums · Society · Paris

Funding for the €1 billion Louvre renovation remains uncertain

Never Enough for Them! Funding for the Louvre renovation project remains in question, reports TANR. Since 2021 the director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, has been promoting the "Grand Louvre" project, which envisages a large-scale reconstruction of the museum, including the building of a new entrance

Coming Up · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Paris

The celebrated French antiques dealer and ardent admirer of Napoleon Pierre-Jean Chalençon has put around 100 items from his famous collection up for auction

The sale will take place on 25 June at Sotheby’s in Paris. Among the lots: Napoleon’s bicorne hat, made by his court hatter Poupard and presented by General Mouton. A campaign bed with a canopy. A ceremonial sword and sceptre used at Napoleon’s coronation in Notre-Dame

Faith · Art · Museums · Paris

The Louvre acquires a collection of 272 icons and a Fabergé triptych

The Louvre has acquired a private collection of 272 icons from Greece (including Crete), the Levant, Russia and other regions. The collection spans the period from the 15th to the early 20th century. The acquisition is a significant contribution to the museum's holdings, as it plans to establish

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris

A magnificent twin-spiral oak staircase, twenty-one metres high and weighing twenty tonnes, has been installed in the south tower of Notre-Dame de Paris

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Mores · Paris

The Arc de Triomphe draped for the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885

Books · Moscow · Paris · People

Yury Grigorovich, choreographer and one of the greatest figures of Soviet ballet, has died

Yury Grigorovich, choreographer and one of the greatest figures of Soviet ballet, has died. He missed his hundredth birthday by little more than a year. Chief choreographer of the Bolshoi Theatre from 1964 to 1995, Grigorovich was the creator of productions and editions of the classical ballets that formed the

Moscow · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture · Nature

Tree topping in 1960s Paris in a photo of Audrey Hepburn and in Moscow

Bonsoir. Thanks to this photograph of Audrey Hepburn we know that in the Paris of the 1960s, too, there was the ruinous practice of crown-topping trees, which is now applied everywhere in Moscow and within a couple of years destroys healthy, sturdy trees. But note that there, at least,

Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage · Paris · Rome

“They say you have abandoned the idea of transporting Trajan's Column? To tell the truth, the undertaking would have cost us very dear”

«They say you have abandoned the idea of transporting Trajan's Column? To tell the truth, the undertaking would have cost us very dear» It beggars belief, but the French really did intend to carry Trajan's pillar off from Rome to Paris as a trophy during the

NB! · Society · Paris · Humour

The members of the Council of Paris await the next post in Parnassian Mockingbird about the dreadful Mayor Anne Hidalgo

The members of the Council of Paris await the next post in Parnassian Mockingbird about the dreadful Mayor Anne Hidalgo. And so it goes every day, for a mere 4283 euros a month

Archaeology · Architecture · Paris

Buried cities, of course, are not so straightforward

Excavations in Paris, not far from the city's oldest fountain, the Fountain of the Innocents, show what complex feats of engineering lie beneath the visible part of the city. Under every quarter there are, quite literally, unbroken foundations on piles, no smaller than the houses above ground

NB! · Archive · Mores · Paris · Humour

Paris, the Champs-Élysées, 1955

Paris, the Champs-Élysées, 1955. The girls are delighted to be fined two thousand francs for jaywalking

NB! · Archive · The East · Paris · Nature