FRANCE Magazine

Lovers of France, that is. If you’re reading this, I think it’s safe to assume you figure among them? And I surmise, since many of you are fellow-bloggers, that you probably like to write. I thought this was good enough to share.

FRANCE Magazine is offering American readers the chance to write about their recent trips to France, with the oppotunity to win a $100 gift voucher.

To enter, email their editorial page at editorial@francemag.com. What do you have to lose?

Jan del Monte, bridging the difference

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In truth, I really love walking, having spent most of my adult life in world-class pedestrian cities. Need I say that Atlanta is not one of them? So I’ve renewed my acquaintance with public transportation.

One advantage of taking the MARTA (I almost never slip and call it “Métro” anymore) is that it’s boring — and so I read more.

Not long ago, I picked up an old friend, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. As with many friends who’ve been absent for a while, you find yourself taking up where you left off, rediscovering things about them you had forgotten while at the same time discovering things you had never before noticed.

I had forgotten that this one never fails to make me smile. So enchanting is it in its  innocence that you scarcely notice the depth of its wisdom. But you feel it.

It is generally accepted that the prince represents the author’s desire to return to his inner child; the rose, his beloved wife Consuelo. The book could be seen as a love letter, were it not so much more.

• The book was written in the United States and first published in English. Saint-Exupery, along with a number of French intellectuals, had quit France during the Occupation. It wasn’t published in France until two years later, after the author’s death.
• It has sold more than 80 million copies and  has been translated into 190 different languages.
• It has been adapted to stage, screen and opera.
• Before the euro became France’s official currency, the little prince and Saint-Exupery appeared on the 50-franc note.
• The airport of Lyon, France, birthplace of Saint-Exupery, is named in his honor.

The Little Prince is especially beloved by the Japanese. There is a Museum of the Little Prince in Hakone, Japan. The chapel is a replica of the one in the village of Saint-Maurice-de Remens, Saint-Exupery’s childhood home, with rose and fox motifs incorporated into the stained glass of the interior facade. A café, Le Saint-Germain-des-Près, is modeled on the Brasserie Lipp, one of his favorite haunts, and the more elaborate Restaurant Le Petit Prince offers the cuisine of Provence, prepared (according to the website) by “Monsieur Okabe, who defeated Iron Chef Sakai in a lamb battle on the Japanese TV program Iron Chef.”

And the book is eminently quotable:

• “You are responsible for that which you tame.”
• “All grownups have been children, but few remember it.”
• “Language is the source of misunderstanding.”
• “It is truly useful since it is pretty.”
• “One only sees well with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.”

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance between Paris and Atlanta

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© 2011 Jane del Monte

I’ve been reading up on it, not because I’m entertaining the idea of a career change, but as part of a project I’m doing. The stories are fascinating, often funny, as in the case of the 84-year-old gentleman in England, known in the press as “The Artful Codger,” who managed to deceive institutions for more than 17 years, earning more than £850,000 through the family business.

His son produced counterfeits of such virtuosity that one piece was authenticated by both the British Museum and Christie’s. The father would then go off in his wheelchair to art houses or museums with the goods that he claimed to have found or inherited, accompanied by the “proper” documentation. Their downfall came via lack of attention to detail, when they tried to sell three Assyrian marble reliefs. British Museum staff noticed a spelling error, and then realized that the horses were wearing 20th-centuryharnesses and that the stone originated in Wiltshire.

We hear of the high-profile cases, such as the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 or that (considered the largest art theft in U.S. history and still unsolved) of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where thieves entered, disguised as police officers, and made off with a Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and works by Manet and Degas, as well as others. However, most art crime goes unreported. 

There are several reasons for this. Museums are often reluctant to show their vulnerability and risk not getting donations in the future. Experts don’t like to admit that they have been fooled by forgeries. A number of thefts are commissioned. Dealers and collectors have engaged in fraud to inflate value and inflate costs.

In the case of antiquities, which account for 75% of art crime, the looters are often locals who moonlight as tomb raiders. The recovery rate here is especially low, as the freshly unearthed pieces have never been seen by experts nor photographed nor documented, and thus their existence is unknown, so they are not listed as stolen.

Art crime is estimated to bring in more than $6 billion a year, but it is difficult to be more precise, as most police departments have historically not differentiated between art crime and other types of crime. As of 2004, the FBI mans an art crimes unit comprised of 13 agents and three trial attorneys. The Italians have devoted the greatest amount of resources to the problem, with 255 agents dedicated to art recovery.

As to the victims, they are individuals; dealers and auction houses; museums; and churches are especially vulnerable, by nature accessible to the public and rarely able to afford the security and insurance to which a museum has access. But, in the end, with the disappearance of a part of our cultural heritage, it is we who are the victims.

There are many sites dedicated to the subject. A good place to begin, if this interests you, is that of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a Rome-based think tank founded by Noah Charney, a young American art historian (www.artcrime.info).

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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Louis XIV

Customarily, I wait until I have finished reading a book to recommend it, but in this case it hardly seems necessary. It is biographical, so there is no danger of giving away the ending. For those who know nothing of French history, this is a painless way to learn; for those who do, it is an entertaining way to broaden and deepen that knowledge.

Writing in the context of the events of the time, Fraser shines her light on the women who surrounded Louis XIV from his birth to the end of his life. You will meet the devout Anne of Austria, his mother, who had certainly the strongest influence on his character, and his wife, the shy, long-suffering Marie-Thérèse, Infanta of Spain.

You will meet his mistresses, from his first (and reputedly platonic) love , the adorable Marie Mancini (who was considered unsuitable and sent away; her parting gifts from Louis were a magnificent strand of pearls and a spaniel puppy upon whose silver collar was engraved, “I belong to Marie Mancini”) to the puritanical Madame de Maintenon, with whom he shared his later years, as well as the women he loved who were part of his large family — his sisters-in-law, his daughters, and his beloved Adélaîde, wife of his grandson the duc de Bourgogne.

Marie Mancini

Fraser notes in the foreword that her principal themes were gallantry (and sex) and religion, citing the connection (and, often, the conflict) between the two. This book gives an insight into court life and examines the character of the Sun King and the status of women in the 17th century.

Fraser is an accomplished writer of historical subjects whose many books have become international bestsellers. Marie-Antoinette: The Journey was the inspiration for the film of the same name. (In my opinion, Sofia Coppola massacred the story, but Versailles and the actors are photogenic.) Her books are exhaustively researched (this one was five years in the making), and could well serve as reference material, given the chronology of political events, a list of principal characters, family trees (you will be grateful), a bibliography, beautiful illustrations, copious footnotes and an index.

Yet her voice is that of a chatty, well-connected neighbor who is only too willing to share the gossip to which she is privy. You will be charmed, and you will be entertained.

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

© 2008, Jan del Monte

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The story has two narrators. Renée is the concierge of a small, exclusive building in the 7th arrondissement. Paloma, 12-1/2 years old and highly precocious, is the younger daughter of two of the co-owners. Each one has a secret.

Renée shuffles around in her slippers, performing her duties and avoiding, whenever possible, much interaction with the co-owners. (Barbery’s descriptions of  the building’s inhabitants are right on target.) Then she retires to the back of her apartment, where she sips Japanese tea and nibbles on delicate pastries, reading Tolstoy and Marx while listening to Mozart and Purcell. Her secret life is one of exquisite refinement, and she learned long ago not to draw attention to herself in order to be left alone.

Paloma is acutely observant, and she records her observations in her journal. She regards her family and those around her with the cynicism proper to a pre-adolescent and the detachment of one who is not yet quite part of the action. Faced with what she regards as the futility of existence, she plans to kill herself on her 13th birthday.

Alternate chapters are narrated by Renée and Paloma. The story takes off when the two begin to form a friendship, and with the introduction of the new neighbor, a Japanese gentleman name Kakuro Ozu. Ozu is clearly perceptive and soon realizes that neither is what she seems.

This is a book to read and reread. The story moves quickly, and one will read it quickly to see what unfolds, but there are many layers.

L’Elégance du Hérisson enjoyed a huge success last year in France. At the beginning of the book is this comment:

Hedgehog or Prozac? At first, the question may seem absurd. But it becomes less so when one learns that a Parisian psychotherapist is prescribing Muriel Barberry’s best-selling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog to her patients. “Yes, I am prescribing it, and I do mean prescribing. This book can do a lot of good . . . [it's] a real toolbox ththat one can look into to resolve one’s problems.” . . . And, indeed, all women, at least once, even Carla Bruni, have lived through the kind of psychological self-denigration that Renée inflicts on herself in the opening scene of the book. The ultimate celebration of every person’s invisible part (Renée smells of cabbage soup but reads Husserl) constitutes one of the book’s operative factors. — L’Express (France)

Follow the doctor’s orders. Buy the book. You will laugh and cry and learn, and you will not regret it.

Bonne lecture (Good reading)!

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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Time will tell if this is coincidence or the beginning of a trend, but the first months of the year have shown a renewed interest in Madeleine Castaing. Fifteen years after her death, a documentary on the life of the French antiquaire and decorator had its premiere in San Francisco in January (1). Now, in Paris, a biography by Jean-Noël Liaut (2) is linked to an exhibition of her furniture (3) in the Galerie du Passage in the Galerie Véro-Dodat.

Castaing probably did more than anyone to make 19th Century furniture respectable.  The “style Castaing” employs a 19th Century aesthetic, seen through 20th Century eyes.  It is an idealized tribute to that period that could only have been conceived by someone who had not lived through it. Eclectic in its execution, rather than historically faithful, it sifts through a range of styles from Directoire to Napoléon III, its components spanning the century and blending provenance.

Castaing has long been a favorite of francophile American decorators, and one has only to enter the exhibition to understand the inspiration for so many of the trends that flourished in the 80′s and 90′s. And yet, how audacious, how original all of these things must have seemed when she introduced them.

Imagine, 50 years ago, leopard print carpeting, or iron furniture invited in from the garden to grace the salon, or Napoléonic campaign furniture, an extravagant superposition of assorted prints amassed on a bed. Chairs were upholstered in vividly-colored velvet framed in gilded wood. Castaing was said to favor neoclassic; her interiors were, in fact, neo-you-name-it.

Throughout, one sees touches of the renowned bleu Castaing. It is an elusive color and somewhat difficult to describe, a sort of Wedgwood that aspires to the blue of French opaline glass, by way of a robin’s egg. 

Madeleine Castaing was an original, known for her eccentricity and her high-profile associations, such as with Cocteau and with her protégé, Soutine, as much as for her work. Picasso once described her as the most beautiful woman in all of Paris, but her allure long outlasted her beauty.

Wearing a reddish wig held in place by an elastic under the chin, her eyes fringed with spidery, heavily mascaraed false lashes, she held court in her gallery at the corner of rue Bonaparte and rue Jacob.  Today it is the home of Ladurée on the Left Bank; the temple of taste and conversation now dispenses macarons. As capricious in her business practices as in her taste, it is said she only sold to those who pleased her.  Those who did not were simply told the item was not for sale.

The exhibition continues until the 15th of March.  If you are in Paris during that time, it is well worth seeing.  I just may have to return to buy the book.

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

(1) Madeleine Castaing, documentary by Christopher Flach.

(2) Liaut, Jean-Noël, Madeleine Castaing, mécène à Montparnasse, décoratrice à Saint-Germain-des-Prés (éd. Payot), €20.

(3) Du coté de chez Madeleine, Galerie du Passage, 20-26 Galerie Véro-Dodat, 75001 Paris.  Until 15 March.

Photo Credits: Top – Cover art for Liaut book. Center – Napoléon III chairs from the bedroom of Madeleine Castaing (courtesy of Connaissance des Arts). Bottom – Portrait of Madeleine Castaing by Chaim Soutine, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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I recently finished reading Misia, The Life of Misia Sert, by Arthur Gold and Robert Fitzdale. This is the biography of an extraordinary woman whose life spanned two world wars and a succession of important artistic movements.

Thrice married, each time to an influential man (the founder of La Revue Blanche, a banker and press magnate, a fashionable artist), Misia’s salon was the place where  Parisian high society rubbed elegantly-clad elbows with the lights of the artistic and literary currents of the time. 

A gifted pianist of Polish descent, Misia set aside her musical aspirations to marry. But, more than an observer, Misia was always a player. Muse, model, patron, friend — she was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec (to whom we owe the cover art), Renoir, Bonnard and Valloton, and was the inspiration for characters by Proust and Cocteau.  

Her closest and most enduring friendships were with Diaghilev, the flamboyant impresario of the Ballets Russes, and with Coco Chanel. As is often the case between women who are close, Misia and Chanel were also rivals. It was Misia who introduced Chanel to Parisian society. In later years, their fortunes shifted, as did the balance of power, and it was Chanel who sustained her to the end of her days. 

This book, which first appeared in 1980 (originally written in English), is the result of exhaustive research. The authors (and, by extension, the reader) are fortunate to have had access to the papers and first-person accounts of numerous people who had been part of Misia’s inner circle. Misia offers an intimate view of the history of the time,often seen through the eyes of its leading actors. This is an excellent reference work and a good read.

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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