The Marais

A lot of artists in Belleville near where we do our marketing are having an open studio day today and we thought it would be a good opportunity to see what is happening in the local scene. Unfortunately, it is raining and, as we don't fancy wandering around in a strange neighbourhood getting wet, we have decided to stay in and work here.
After an initial rush of "finds" at the Musee des Arts Decoratif things have gone a little quiet. Most of the references that look interesting and/or directly connected to the research turn out to have little or no information. There are occasional nuggets, like finding the name of a ceramacist in a catalogue for an exhibition in Nancy and discovering that he was an Englishman who lived and worked in Paris (although there were no images in the catalogue I had previously found an image of this man's work but had no other information about him). It is the same for many of the images that I have found. Trying to locate the artists geographically and/or in time to see if there could be any connections is extremely difficult - but we press on.
By 3pm the rain appears to have pretty well cleared away and we decide to go for a walk in the Marais and track down the Musee Carnavalet (the history of Paris) which has the jeweller Fouquet's shop from Rue de Rivoli designed by Mucha tucked away in a back room.
This is the second Sunday we have walked in the Marais and are amazed to find that many of the streets are once again closed to all traffic except bicycles and pedestrians (and there are formidable wardens at each entrance to make sure everyone obeys!).
As I have said elsewhere, the Marais is a very old part of Paris (parts of the church near us apparently date back to the 13th century) and there was once a wall that encircled Paris just a few blocks away from here (most of what is now the Marais was then farmland). There are a few remaining examples of old houses and one near the Pompidou centre is said to be the oldest in Paris (these ones near us look similar). The area became popular amongst the aristocracy at one time and large mansions were built here but, after the king moved to Versailles the powerful people moved on and many of their mansions became warehouses. It was all downhill after that until the minister for culture, Malreaux, decided in the 1960's that the area was of historic significance and began the process of weeding out the rotten and restoring the restorable (this was when the Cite was established).
Musee Carnavalet is spread over three levels of a building which appears to be built over two open courtyards and is like a maze inside (entry is free unless you wish to see the special exhibiton). Areas are broken down by century starting from Roman times up to today and are filled with drawings, paintings, maps, artifacts and maquettes - all ather fascinating. The top floor is given over to the revolution and steps you through the background, the key players, the main events and the aftermath (helps to sort out the scene but I'm still a bit confused about the Jacobins).
We finally track down the Mucha display tucked away in a corner room at the end of a dead end corridor (luckily we had directions or we would never have found it). It would appear that the Art Nouveau era is of little significance in the context of Parisian history. However, it is a beautiful display - the whole of Fouquet's shop has been moved here and set up just as it was - totally Art nouveau. There is also a room from the Cafe de Paris with furniture by Majorelle (another Ecole de Nancy designer) and two cartoons by (?) done with tiles. As the attendant did not seem to care I took stacks of photos but, since it faces into a corridor it was almost impossible to get a good shot of the front of the shop. There is also a very nice little bookshop attached to the museum with heaps of stuff on the history of Paris.
Emerging back into the real world at nearly 6pm we find the streets still thronged with people and begin the ramble back to the Cite. Along the way we stumble upon a small area with all kosher shops and decide to try some of the pastries from one that looks really interesting. Hard to choose but we settle on a tarte citron which turns out to be the best we have ever eaten (crisp pastry and lemon filling that tastes just like home made lemon butter that mother used to make - we will definitely be back)