The Petit Palais

The Grand Palais and the Petit Palais were built for the 1900 Universal Exposition and became a museum in 1902. I had been to exhibits at the Grand Palais but had never visited the Petit Palais across the street.

Grand Palais

Petit Palais

The Grand Palais and the Petit Palais are divided by Avenue Winston Churchill.

View of Grand Palais from Petit Palais

As I walked up to the Petit Palais, appropriately enough, there was a statue with this inscription:

We shall never surrender

Winston Churchill

Londres le 4 Juin 1940

Winston Churchill

So inspiring! The Petit Palais is beautiful. It is the Musée des Beaux-Arts or Museum of Fine Arts for the City of Paris.

Petit Palais

Entrance to Petit Palais

The inside was stunning. There was an inner courtyard garden, beautiful ceilings and huge halls with mosaic floors. So impressive!

Entrance Hall

Looking towards the Garden
from the Entrance Hall

Mosaic around Staircase

Entrance Looking towards the Sculpture Gallery
Stunning Mosaic Floors

And we haven't even gotten to the artwork in this building yet! The garden courtyard was beautiful with blooming trees, palm trees, flowers, beautiful columns and a café. It would be a lovely spot to sit with a cool drink in the summer.

Garden Courtyard

Garden Colonnade

Looking from the colonnade towards
the Door to the Sculpture Gallery

Colonnade

Garden Courtyard

In the late 1800s, the City of Paris commissioned many sculptures for its streets, squares, gardens and the facades of buildings, making the city an open air museum. The Sculpture Gallery includes intermediate plaster models used to make the final bronze statues. Many statues in Paris were melted down during World War II so many of the plaster models preserve their memory.

Sculpture Gallery

This sculpture below is titled "Towards the Homeland." It is of a young girl from Alsace, recognized by the wide knotted bow on her head. She is carrying her young brother in her arms and she has just crossed the border that separates Alsace from France following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. During the war, France lost Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. The Alsatians refused to be German for patriotic reasons and Alsace and Lorraine once again became part of France after World War I.

Towards the Homeland

Another fun sculpture was Louis XIV's favorite musician, Jean-Baptiste Lully, a child prodigy. Lully was the son of a miller from Florence and worked as a kitchen waiter at the French court. He wears a chef's toque and an apron and his foot is resting on an upside-down saucepan. Notice the cabbage behind his foot.

Jean-Baptiste Lully

The City of Paris acquired the paintings and sculpture in the museum beginning in 1870. The works were either commissioned by the city or bought directly from the artists or at the Salon  exhibitions of the French Academy of Fine Arts. The collection has been augmented by gifts and donations and is quite varied.

This portrait of the actress Sarah Bernhardt in her hôtel near Parc Monceau was the talk of the town at the 1876 Salon. Isn't she elegant? It was her favorite portrait and she kept it all her life.

Sarah Bernhardt

I thought this painting by Gustave Courbet of his sister Juliette was sweet.

Juliette Courbet

This monumental painting of the marché at Les Halles really captures the hustle and bustle of what it must have been like early each morning at the market. Look at the huge orange squash and the Saint Eustache church in the backgound. The painting was the sensation of the 1895 Salon and was originally destined for the Hôtel de Ville. It was then transferred to the Petit Palais but was not on display for most of the 20th Century until it was restored in 2013.

Les Halles

Benjamin Franklin

One of my favorite sculptors in the Louvre is Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). I have always loved the sculptures of his children and his bust of Benjamin Franklin. When I went to the Louvre last month, I was so upset that his bust of Benjamin Franklin was nowhere to be found. I googled it and found the Louvre had put Ben into storage! I was so disappointed. I always visited Ben when I was at the Louvre. The bust was so realistic.

I was surprised to find this terra cotta bust modeled after Houdon's bust of Benjamin Franklin on display at the Petit Palais. It was like unexpectedly running into an old friend!

The artwork at the museum was so varied. This 1700 sedan chair was owned by the niece of Louis XIV.


Paul Delaroche painted this sweet portrait of his son, Horace, in 1838. I thought Kate would appreciate the young spaniel painted next to him.

Horace Delaroche

The collection included sculptures and paintings from the Impressionists. My favorite painting of all was Monet's "Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt, winter effect."

Monet's Sunset

The photo doesn't do the picture justice. The colors were so beautiful and the painting reminded me of Monet's "Impression, Sunrise" at the Marmottan Museum that gave the Impressionist movement its name.

Impression, Sunrise
Marmottan Museum

Admiring the Monet

This sharply dressed man stopped to admire the Monet painting.
There were sculptures by Rodin, Renoir and Carpeaux. Who knew Renoir sculpted, too?

Torso of a Man
by Rodin

Venus Victorious
by Renoir

Ugolino and his Sons
by Carpeaux

The collection was so varied. I liked these two paintings, one from 1670 by a Dutch painter that reminded me of Vermeer and the other from 1913 of the painter's wife.

The Sweeper
by Pieter Janssens Elinga

Anna filia bella-Souvenir de la Joconde
by Georges-Daniel de Monfreid

Annette de Monfreid is painted in front of a tapestry of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the manner of a Renaissance portrait. She is posed in the style of the Mona Lisa (la Joconde in French) with her arms crossed. Even her smile is similar to the Mona Lisa smile. The artist pays hommage to his wife with the inscription in Latin across the top and down the side: To my dear and beautiful Anna by her husband G. de Monfreid 1913. The talented artist was a painter, sculptor, engraver, ceramicist and master glass maker, and a friend and confidant of Paul Gauguin.


This post does not even touch the surface of the varied artworks at the Petit Palais. It really is a gem in the center of Paris. And admission is free. I don't know why I hadn't found my way here in prior years but I will definitely be returning.
As I left the Petit Palais, I walked past our favorite bridge, Pont Alexandre III and looked towards Les Invalides. Rain or shine, Paris is so beautiful--a feast for the eyes everywhere I turn!

Pont Alexandre III

Tour Jean Sans Peur

Even though I have lived in Paris many times, I continue to discover new places to visit. Paris never fails to disappoint. Last Wednesday I set out for the right bank to see the tower of Jean sans Peur, or John the Fearless. It is the tallest medieval tower visible in Paris. It is the last remaining vestige of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the home of the Dukes of Burgundy.

Tour Jean Sans Peur

Tower on the Map of Paris

The mansion was built along both sides of the ancient wall that Philippe August built around Paris beginning in 1190.

Hôtel de Bourgogne about 1535

The tower is in green. It was built 1409-1411. The Philippe Auguste wall is in purple and incorporated in the mansion which is shown in yellow. Only the tower remains and next to the tower is a school, built on the foundations of the old hôtel. I could hear the kids out on the playground as I visited.

Remains of Philippe Auguste Wall

Jean sans Peur built the tower after he had his cousin, Louis d'Orleans, murdered in 1407. Louis was the brother of the king, Charles VI. King Charles suffered from madness and the two branches of the royal family, the Armagnacs (Louis d'Orleans) and the Burgundians (Jean sans Peur) fought over who would rule over the country. Just as it was looking like the Armagnacs were winning, Jean had Louis murdered on the street by his henchmen. Soon after the murder, he began building the tower and enlarging his mansion to celebrate his triumph and display his wealth and power.

Entrance to the Tower

Tower built on the Philippe August Wall

Jean San Peur

The tower served as the main stairway for the large hôtel, or mansion, and also as a safe place for Jean sans Peur to have his bed chamber. The most spectacular part of this tower was the ceiling partway up the staircase with carved stone vegetation.

The carvings were amazing. They were in the form of the intertwined branches of an oak tree interlaced with leaves of plants symbolic to Jean's family.

The oak tree is the emblem of his father, Philippe le Hardi (Philip the Bold), the hawthorn bush is the emblem of his mother and hops symbolize Jean sans Peur.

The ceiling was originally painted in different colors. It must have been magnificent!

From this magnificent ceiling I kept climbing up the narrow winding tower and came to one of the rooms that was used as a bed chamber or office.

Staircase winding up

Bed Chamber/Office 

On the far wall of the bedroom was a fireplace and through the door next to it was the latrine. The latrine was very sophisticated for that time--constructed on the other side of the fireplace wall so it stayed warm. It had conduits in the wall for evacuation and ventilation.

Wash Basin

Latrine

There was another bed chamber/office with a latrine above that and then one final room on the top where you could still see the original roof timbers and some of the original floor tiles. This room was probably used by the watchman and was simpler than the rooms below.

From 1409-1413, Jean sans Peur conducted his fight against the Armagnacs from his fortified tower and residence. He had his own unofficial militia--members of the butcher's guild--but he became so unpopular he had to flee Paris in 1413. He returned in 1418 but was murdered by his opponents in 1419. So I guess what goes around comes around.

Original Roof Beams

Original Floor Tiles

Jean Sans Peur's son, Philippe le Bon (Philip the Good), inherited the residence and the title Duke of Burgundy but he spent little time there. It was during this time that Burgundy reached its height, conquering the Netherlands and purchasing the Duchy of Luxembourg. Philip le Bon's soldiers captured Joan of Arc and turned her over to the English, his allies at the time.

Tour Jean Sans Peur

The mansion was used for many purposes over the years--a theater, leather market, lodging house, hardware salesroom, lock factory. At the time of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, the neighborhood was dramatically altered and in 1868 when a street was cut through, the remaining buildings except the tower were torn down. The school was built on the hôtel's foundations in 1878. The tower was then purchased by the City of Paris in 1874 and declared a historic monument. But it wasn't until the 1990s that it was restored to its original medieval appearance and the tower opened for visitors in 1999. It is a little medieval gem in the middle of Paris.