Petit Palais - again

I have already posted about the Petit Palais, (see here), but I thought something more had to be said and especially shown. The Petit Palais was built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition at the same time as the Grand Palais, which stands in front (see different posts).  Most of the buildings from the 1900 Universal Exhibition have disappeared, but the Petit Palais as well as the Grand Palais were built to stay… and they do. The Petit Palais houses the “City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts”, and as all the City-of-Paris museums, there is no entrance fee for the permanent collections (which is not true for the national, private… museums).  You will however have to pay for the temporary exhibitions.

A few new glimpses of the outside with its incredibly decorated entrance, the general richness of decorations, sculptures …

… of the inner courtyard (where you can have a snack, a coffee, a glass of wine…)…

… of the entrance hall and galleries, with the ceilings decorated by Albert Besnard (1849-1934)…

… the different stairs leading to a lower floor.

The collections are partly based on paintings and sculptures acquired by the City of Paris since 1870 and also to a large part on donations. They cover different periods, but basically only until 1900… more recent art belonging to the City of Paris is to be found in the “City of Paris Museum of Modern Art”, on which I wrote e.g. here.  

Looking on what you can find in the museum, I could mention one large hall presenting what mainly comes from the 1921 Tuck donation, including tableware, watches, figurines, sculptures, paintings…

On the main floor, there is a lot to see from especially the 19^th century, including several paintings by Gustave Courbet (1819-77) and a fabulous portrait of Sarah Bernhardt … You may not so often see paintings by André Gill, more known as a caricaturist… and for the “Lapin Agile” (see story here).

… and there is more of it downstairs. 

We can find some sketches, plasters, models… for different sculptures which we in a more permanent form can find around Paris. This goes e.g. for the “La Défense” by L-E Barrias (1841-1905), which gave the name to the business quarters with that name (see post here) and for the statue of “Marianne” by Léopold Morice (1846-1919) on the Place de la République (see different posts, here and here).

Jules Dalou (1838-1902) is represented by the then future monuments of the “Triumph of the Republic” on Place de la Nation (see post here) and his tribute to the painter Eugene Delacroix in the Luxembourg Gardens (see post here).  

There are other sculptures, including the portrait that Rodin made of his friend Dalou, an impressive Chinese head by J-B Carpeaux (1827-75)…

There is a large collection from older days, icons…

… and even some antiques.

Unfortunately some treasures, mostly from the 17^th century, including Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin… were hidden when I passed by the other day (so I “stole” some pictures from the museum site).

A glimpse of Sweden

The “Petit Palais” (see previous post), housing the City of Paris Fine Art Museum, offers also temporary exhibitions. I attended the vernissage of one of those, dedicated to Carl Larsson, described as Sweden’s most beloved painter. There were some Swedish flags on the building and some of you may recognise the Crown Princess Victoria and her husband, who opened the exhibition.

I guess that internationally, Carl Larsson (1853-1919) may rather be recognised for paintings which are related to Christmas and, by some of you, more generally for illustrations of his home and family. His home at Sundborn in Swedish Dalecarlia can be visited (I have been a few times) and remains more or less as it was. Special honour should be given to his wife Karin, also an excellent painter, but especially the mother of their eight children and even more especially the interior designer of their home, creating this very particular style.

Carl and Karin met in France, where they spent several of their younger years. I made a post about the place where they – and many other artists – worked and lived at Grez-sur-Loing (see here). Some very nice paintings were made from this area south of Paris (the three, to the left, in the top row).

My personal memory of Carl Larsson is especially linked to a 50 square meter (540 square feet) wall painting, which I observed every morning during eight years in the Gothenburg school ”aula”, where we all gathered every morning for 15 minutes before the lectures commenced. (Carl painted a lot also in my home town, where he spent some years as art teacher.) The painting is named “Ute blåser sommarvind” (The summer wind is blowing).

The Carl Larsson exhibit at the “Petit Palais” with a large number of paintings and drawings from the Swedish National Museum, from the Larsson home at Sundborn and elsewhere, can be seen until June 7.  

And after the glimpse of Sweden, a glimpse of the Paris spring weekend, under blue sky and close to 20°C (some 65-70°F) - in the shadow (if you found it)!. 

Gardens around Grand and Petit Palais

Around the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais (see two previous posts) there are some nice gardens. Most people would just walk down (or up) the Champs Elysées on their way between the Arch of Triumph and Place de la Concorde. This is also what you can see here on pictures taken last Friday, the only nice spring day we have had recently (see how people are dressed).

If you have the time I would however recommend some zigzagging. The gardens are nice; there is even a small hidden “Swiss valley”. You can relax on a park bench, have a coffee…

Behind the park are some embassies (GB, US…) and the Elysées Palace. You can see the garden entrance to the palace here.

You can also find Espace Cardin (with theatre, cinema, exhibitions…), Théatre Marigny with origins from the 19th century and where Offenbach was a “star” and where still some of our top actors perform and finally the Théatre-du-Rond-Point, which originally (around 1850) was built as a “panorama” theatre (you can still read “PANORAMA” over the old entrance). Before the cinema, the “panoramas” (360 degrees pictures and scenes) were very popular. From 1894 to 1980 this was an ice palace, but since transformed to one of our leading theatres.

If you are hungry – and can afford it, you can also find some of Paris’ best restaurants here: Ledoyen (3 Michelin “macaroons”) , Laurent, Lenôtre. There are a number of fountains and statues around. Do you recognize these personalities?

You can find some of these pictures on my photo-blog.

Petit Palais

Like the Grand Palais (my post yesterday), the smaller, but still big, Petit Palais was built for the World’s Fair (Exposition Universelle) 1900. Also like the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais has been seriously renovated and was again open to public in 2005. The Petit Palais is today housing the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts, partly used for a permanent collection (free of charge), partly for temporary exhibitions - the one ongoing at the moment is dedicated to Goya and about 200 of his etchings and lithographs.

The entrance gate (see top picture) and hall are magnificent. Inside, you can find a semi-circular garden, encircled by ionic columns. There is also a café and you can enjoy your coffee (or whatever you prefer) in the garden when the weather permits. The permanent collection consists of paintings (artists like Rubens, Rembrandt, Courbet, Ingres, Delacroix, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Gauguin, Cézanne…), medieval and 18th century furniture, manuscripts, books… Some kindergarten kids did their best to reproduce some of the art they saw. Some of these pictures can be seen on my photo-blog.