Observations · Society · Paris · Humour

Hidalgo and the Élysée Palace, a Libération image and rats in Paris

Hidalgo is finally ready! Destination: the Élysée Palace. I do not know who hides behind the pseudonym Coco at the newspaper Libération, but this documentary image vividly reminded me how, on my last trip to Paris, I happened to meet more rats than Parisians. The fault lay not with my

Moscow · Observations · Society · Paris

Metro accessibility for people with limited mobility in Paris, Tokyo and Moscow

The French on Opportunities for Normal Life for Disabled People in Paris: A Paralympian Carrying the Olympic Flame Cannot Get Down into the Metro. A reminder: in Paris only 9 stations out of 300 are fully equipped for wheelchair users. In Tokyo, by comparison, it is 186 out of 211.

Two elderly men sit in a restaurant, smiling and pointing their fingers at the camera.

NB! · Cinema · Paris · People · Pop Culture

Pierre Richard, 87, remembers his friend Jean-Paul Belmondo, mourned across France

87-year-old Pierre Richard remembers his friend Jean-Paul Belmondo. He writes that all of France is in mourning. In fact, the whole world is in mourning

NB! · Art · Heritage · Paris · People

The signature cross on the tombstone of that very René Lalique at Père Lachaise cemetery

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Paris · People

Twenty-four years ago, Arthur Edwards, who had photographed Princess Diana for seventeen years, took this picture of her coffin leaving the ancient Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris

Marble torso of a crouching nude Aphrodite seen from behind against a black background, with a small fragment of a hand on the back.

Art · Museums · Paris · Humour

The Venus of Vienne in the Louvre, without its Cupid, and the Hermitage Venus of Lely

When you have smeared the sun cream unevenly over your back and remain for ever after with a sunburnt handprint on the snow-white marble of your body. The Venus of Vienne, or Bathing Aphrodite, of the 1st-2nd centuries AD, from the collection of the Louvre, with the missing

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Physical resemblance of Danton and Robespierre in portraits at the Carnavalet Museum

Do you think there is a connection between the very distinctive appearance of two French revolutionaries, Danton and Robespierre, and their personal qualities? At any rate, one cannot fail to notice the outward resemblance of these two figures of the French Revolution in these portraits by unknown artists from the

Close-up of a painted terracotta head of a man with parted lips, upturned gaze and short dark hair.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Paris

Painted terracotta head of a Franciscan monk by Guido Mazzoni, 1475, Louvre

Head of a Franciscan Monk. Guido Mazzoni, painted terracotta sculpture, a kind of living painting frozen in place. 1475. The year fourteen hundred and seventy-five, exactly so. Collection of the Louvre

Art · Museums · Paris · People

Gustave Caillebotte retrospective in Martigny and his painting “The Europe Bridge”

The Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland, is currently staging a retrospective of the undeservedly neglected Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. At the very least, he may be remembered for his painting "The Floor Scrapers", with its men planing a parquet floor while sitting on the floor of a large

Architecture · Monarchies · Observations · Paris · Humour

Azure standard in Napoleon's dressing room at Rambouillet resembles the flag of Kazakhstan

I recalled Napoleon's lavatory in the Château de Rambouillet, which he rebuilt for his own needs and restored after the ravages of the Revolution. Today the palace is used for the highest affairs of state. The interiors are beautiful. And in the lavatory, with its medallion by Jean

Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Paris · People · Pop Culture

Castelbajac graffiti on rue des Beaux-Arts in Paris still intact six months on

Does anyone still remember the Marquis Jean Michel de Castelbajac? A designer from the distant past, who dressed Madonna in a coat of teddy bears and was famed for his rainbow palette and witty solutions, once even earning the title of France's king of kitsch, and who befriended

Art · Monarchies · Paris · Saint Petersburg

Porphyry and gilt-bronze ewers by Gouthière

Porphyry and gilt-bronze ewers by Gouthière. Paul I acquired them in Paris in 1799 and placed them in his bedchamber in the Mikhailovsky Castle in Saint Petersburg. These vases stood in the Emperor's bedchamber on the night of his murder, between 23 and 24 March 1801. No,