Does the world really need more pictures of Paris?

Yes of course when it’s things you don’t see every day such as the French counterpart of Target, chocolate-scented postage stamps and mail being delivered on stilts! As usual I’m posting pictures of things I’m pretty sure you’re not going see to anywhere else, with one or two exceptions.

I know, the Postal Museum sounds less interesting than watching paint dry –

but trust me it’s riveting and absolutely worth a visit.

and by pigeons carrying microfilm during the siege of Paris in 1870-1871 during the Franco-Prussian war (one of the actual pigeons and yes actual microfilm like in 1960s spy movies)

Projection of mail from microfilm, 1870-71

Chocolate-scented stamps celebrating 400 Years of Chocolate (2009). Sorry for the glare. They really need to get anti-refliective glass!

20-foot long map from 1265 (not a typo) of routes from Bordeaux to India (1887 reprint)

Exhibition on the history of postcards at the Postal Museum

In marshlands they used stilts for lots of things besides mail delivery

Occasionally people would write in two directions when there wasn’t enough space

Musée Carnavalet, the Paris history museum

Earrings (19th c.) depicting Louix XVI and Marie Antoinette with guillotines and at top the liberty cap, aka Phrygian cap, which also appears on several U.S. state flags

Perfume bottle “Révolte” (1937) in the shape of a cobblestone, referring to their use in the barricades in the Paris Commune in 1871

Wood and tin container for artificial beauty spots made of fabric (1771)

Shoes with flags of the Allies made on the occasion of the liberation of Paris (1944)

Masks used by Grace Jones in her shows (early 1980s) which she would break as part of the performance.

You don’t think of Ben Franklin as someone who was around French kings but here he is arranging a treaty with Louis XVI (1779)

Libretto from a ballet in which Louix XV performed in 1720. He was not the only French king to dance in ballets.

“Course of the Main Rivers of Europe. Composed and Printed by Louis XV, King of France and Navarre. 1718”. Louis was age 8 and this was one of many documents he wrote as part of his education which were printed on his own little press.

Map from 1718 that doesn’t have St. Louis which was wasn’t founded until fifty years later but it does have other local places such as Meramec, a river and the name of my elementary school, and Cauoquias (Kahokia), which was once as large as London.

Anonymous letter to the regent Philippe, duc d’Orléans who ruled France from 1715, when Louis XV became king at age 5 but was too young to rule, to 1723 when he reached his majority.

Rebuses about current events such Louis XIV’s recent death, the court and an opera ball (1715)

Fireworks, etching (1763). The label didn’t say why ‘Vive le roi’ is backwards

I did not know that Beaumarchais, author of the plays The Marriage of Figaro and Barber of Seville, was also a clockmaker (and activist for American independence). He made this around 1750.

Notre-Dame bridge (1756), filled with buildings as was common at the time. A jousting game is taking place in the river and the tall thing is a pump.

Wallpaper with Declaration of the Rights of Man (1871)

Shop signs from before there were street addresses

Odd and ends

In the subway there’s mini-lockers where you can leave your keys for someone.

Vivienne Westwood in a photography exhibition in the subway

There were lots of big ads in the subway for a graphic book history of Jerusalem. Graphic novels are immensely popular in France.

If you forget your umbrella they’ll loan you one for free in the subway for an $8 deposit which is returned when you bring it back. No receipt, no paperwork and if you want to keep it you just keep it (photo found online).

In the train stations they have people on the platforms to help you figure out the schedules and find your way.

A little crazy but I took three photos of the very nice bakery section at France’s version of Target.

A bouillon, a type of cheap traditional restaurant

The Spirit of Electricity (La Fée Electricité)

This 30 by 200-foot mural was painted by Raoul Dufy for the electricity pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair and is now at the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris. It depicts the history and role of electricity in society. They sort of folded it in half to fit into the limited space which is not how it was originally displayed.

In case you go to Paris brace yourself for museums being crowded like a bar on Saturday night even on weekdays in late January which is probably about the slowest time of the year and with timed tickets. The demand seems to soar every year with no end in sight. From the crowds in the Louvre you’d never guess they’ve set caps on admissions because they were getting twice as many visitors as the pyramid entry complex was designed to handle.

Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955) retrospective at Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris

The Louvre

Not posting a lot of photos here because as usual I try to limit it to things you can’t easily find online.

Basket of strawberries (1761) by Chardin, one of the Louvre’s highest-profile purchases in years. In 2022 it was going to leave France forever after a museum in Texas made the highest bid at an auction but at the last minute the state pre-empted the sale by granting it national treasure status. This means the seller has to let the state buy it for same price as the foreign buyer was going to pay. It’s not famous like some of his other paintings but for specialists it’s important enough that it was on the cover the catalogue of the first major Chardin solo exhibition in the modern era in 1979..