REDISCOVERING THE PICTURESQUE IN PARIS
Surprising Stories: Fragile Flowers: Redouté, Prints and Porcelains
Surprising Stories
For most of Spring 2020 many of us have missed being able to see, touch and smell beautiful flowers up close. We can look wistfully beyond closed garden gates to try to catch a glimpse of blooms or instead settle for virtual bouquets.…
Surprising Stories: The Buttes-Chaumont: A Model for a Green City
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As we leave our homes after two months of lockdown in Paris, our Surprising Story this week visits the Buttes-Chaumont, one of the city’s first public parks and urban renewal projects. Part of Baron Haussmann’s mid-19th century designs…
Surprising Stories: La Place Des Vosges: Fashion and Architecture in the Marais
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When King Henri IV arrived in Paris in 1594, after thirty years of war and destruction, he faced a momentous challenge: how to restart the economy and rebuild the capital city? A Renaissance prince with an eye for profit, he imagined a spectacular…
Surprising Stories: A Princely Wager at Bagatelle
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Many of the public parks in and around Paris were created over three hundred years ago by the royal family or wealthy aristocrats. These private gardens were designed as places of play and amusement where the owners indulged their…
Surprising Stories: Monet's Water Lilies, from Giverny to the Musée de l'Orangerie
With the arrival of spring blossoms and warmer weather, it is all the more challenging to be confined to our homes. It was the goal of many Impressionist artists to capture this moment of nature’s splendor and few achieved this as gloriously…