This ‘small palace’ in Avignon is small only when compared to the huge Palace of the Popes on the same square, but by any other standards the Petit Palais is itself a large building, and it is filled to the brim with outstanding medieval religious artworks. To my relief, most Read More …
The Calvet Museum is one of several worthwhile art museums in Avignon. Its main building is this mansion on Rue Joseph Vernet, which was built from 1741 to 1754 for a family called Villeneuve-Martignan. The museum has been located here since 1835. The street was named after the eighteenth-century painter Read More …
Nogent-sur-Seine (pronunciation here) is a quiet town of nearly 6000 people, located 93 km southeast of Paris. In the nineteenth century, four generations of sculptors lived in Nogent-sur-Seine. They were Marius Ramus (1805-1888), Paul Dubois (1829-1905), Alfred Boucher (1850-1934) and finally Camille Claudel (1864-1943). In 2017 the world’s first Camille Read More …
The Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux Arts) in Lyon is located in a former Benedictine abbey dating from the 17th century. In the center there is a pleasant sculpture garden with a cloister running around it. The museum was founded in 1803 with a first consignment of 110 Read More …
Auguste Lumière (1862-1954) and his brother Louis Lumière (1864-1948) became very wealthy in their early twenties thanks to their invention of a machine that could mass-produce photographic gelatin dry-plates. Their factory in Lyon, France, quickly became one of the largest in Europe and their dry-plates became a best-selling product because Read More …