Barking Up the Right Trees Pinus pseudostrobus apulcensis at the Arboretum de Chèvreloup. © F-G Grandin/MNHN Right beside Marie-Antoinette’s make-believe farm on the grounds of the Château de Versailles is a kind of secret garden, open to the public but … Read More
The Emperor’s Not-so-New Furniture “Apelle Peignant Campaspe en Présence d’Alexandre” (c. 1812), by Jacques Louis David. © Rmn-Grand Palais/Philipp Bernard Was Napoleon, on top of his many other attributes, a style-setter? Not really, according to the exhibition “Napoléon Ier ou … Read More
Neglected ArtistResurfaces in Eastern France “Maleck en Bleu” (1898), by Albert André. Collection Musée d’Art Sacré de Pont-Saint-Esprit. All rights reserved. For anyone who has heard of the French city of Montbéliard, one word immediately springs to mind at the … Read More
At Home with George … And Frédéric, Franz, Eugène … George Sand’s House in Nohant. © Etienne Revault-CMN In 1821, a 17-year-old girl named Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, who would one day become George Sand, inherited a small manor house, the Manoir … Read More
Seven Deadly SinsIn the Garden “Le Domaine de Narcisse,” Photo © E. Sender A summer pilgrimage to the International Garden Festival at Château de Chaumont, a couple of hours from Paris, has become a ritual for many Parisians. Each year, … Read More
Furnishing Giverny for Its Former Residents “In the Woods at Giverny: Blanche Hoschedé at Her Easel with Suzanne Hoschedé Reading” (1887), by Claude Monet. As is by now well-known, the artist Claude Monet and his family moved into a house … Read More
A Destination, Not an Airport The Maladrerie Saint Lazare, where the lepers of Beauvais once lived. Photo: ParisUpdate.com Every time I mention to friends that I have visited Beauvais, they laugh. This can be explained by the fact that many … Read More
Jean Cocteau in front of his house in Milly-la-Forêt on July 24, 1963. © KEYSTONE-FRANCE/Keystone/Eyedea Presse Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) is a slippery character. It’s hard to get a grip on who he was and what he did, partly because he … Read More
The global economy may still be reeling, but you’d never know it from a visit to the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, where a small building boom is underway as part of the Ile Seguin-Rives de Seine redevelopment project, which … Read More
“Portrait of Z. B. Marenzi” (1737) by Paolo Bonomino. Caen’s Musée des Beaux Arts must be my absolute all-time favorite provincial fine-art museum. Set in a contemporary building excavated out of the main courtyard … Favorite
