....and many cities more... classics by m. sasek

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Master and Slaves

Vintage Cover

Paris, Pont Alexandre III.1930s

Dr. Paul Wolff & Alfred Tritschler

Discovery

 Portrait de Madame de Florian by Giovanni Boldini

For 70 years the Parisian apartment had been left uninhabited, under lock and key, the rent faithfully paid but no hint of what was inside.
Behind the door, under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.
The woman who owned the flat had left for the south of France before the Second World War and never returned.
But when she died recently aged 91, experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions and homed in on the flat near the Trinité church in Paris between the Pigalle red light district and Opera.
Entering the untouched, cobweb-filled flat in Paris' 9th arrondissement, one expert said it was like stumbling into the castle of Sleeping Beauty, where time had stood still since 1900.
"There was a smell of old dust," said Olivier Choppin-Janvry, who made the discovery. Walking under high wooden ceilings, past an old wood stove and stone sink in the kitchen, he spotted a stuffed ostrich and a Mickey Mouse toy dating from before the war, as well as an exquisite dressing table.
But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.
The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist's former muse and whose granddaughter it was who had left the flat uninhabited for more than half a century.
The muse was Marthe de Florian, an actress with a long list of ardent admirers, whose fervent love letters she kept wrapped neatly in ribbon and were still on the premises. Among the admirers was the 72nd prime minister of France, George Clemenceau, but also Boldini.
The expert had a hunch the painting was by Boldini, but could find no record of the painting. "No reference book dedicated to Boldini mentioned the tableau, which was never exhibited," said Marc Ottavi, the art specialist he consulted about the work.
When Mr Choppin-Janvry found a visiting card with a scribbled love note from Boldini, he knew he had struck gold. "We had the link and I was sure at that moment that it was indeed a very fine Boldini".
He finally found a reference to the work in a book by the artist's widow, which said it was painted in 1898 when Miss de Florian was 24.
The starting price for the painting was €300,000 but it rocketed as ten bidders vyed for the historic work. Finally it went under the hammer for €2.1 million, a world record for the artist.
"It was a magic moment. One could see that the buyer loved the painting; he paid the price of passion," said Mr Ottavi.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8042281/...

Picasso's Studio, Paris 1936-1955

Picasso's studio, Rue des Grand Augustins, Paris

Picasso moved into a new studio in the attic of 7, rue des Grands-Augustins, which Dora Maar found for him in early 1937. 

Originally part of a grand 17th-century mansion, it had an intriguing history that appealed to Picasso's sense of irony, particularly as he was painting Guernica. The studio was said to be the setting for 'The Unknown Masterpiece', a short story written in 1837 by the famous French author, Honoré de Balzac. It describes an obsession by the painter, Frenhofer, the greatest painter of his time, to represent the absolute on his canvas, a process that takes years for his creative powers to complete. When the picture, which becomes less and less recognizable as time goes on, is ridiculed by his artist friends as the work of a madman, he destroys the work and dies. The story resonated with Picasso who, like Frenhofer, also locked himself away in the same studio to create a masterpiece, although in his case it was recognized as such.

In 1929, Pablo Picasso, who has a passion to "Unknown Masterpiece", illustrates the story by Balzac in the decorating of eleven etchings. Seven years later, Picasso moves to Grenier des Grands-Augustins.
In his wonderful book "Conversations with Picasso", published by Gallimard, Brassaï, this great photographer rated "living eye" by Henry Miller described the new home of Picasso.
"In this very old part of Paris, the street is named after a former convent razed in 1791 and whose lands extended to the  rue Nevers,  rue Guénégaud and rue Christine where Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas still live.  The small mansion at the corner of the street and the Quai des Grands Augustins, occupied by the restaurant La Perouse since the fifteenth century. I already knew the seventeenth century patrician home of the No. 7 and the two upper floors became Picasso's studio...."
Balzac's description of this house, the stairs steep and dark, is in fact a rather striking resemblance. Moved and stimulated the idea of taking the place of the illustrious shadow of Frenhofer, Picasso once praised the workshop. That was in 1937.

 Paris 1944, 7 Rue des Grands Augustins, Paris 6eme. 

Pablo Picasso in his sudio with his Afghan dog called Kazbeck.

Simple Seduction

Paris Illustrated

Vintage YSL Looks ~ Style Inspiration A/W 2010

Givenchy Haute Couture Fall Winter 2010/2011 by Ricardo Tisci

Mind blowing.. the presentation, the craftman ship, the details, the casting.
A future classic.

Les Halles, Paris 1962 by Tom Palumbo

Images from Paris cafés and nightlife in 1962, the same week Yves St. Laurent's runway show vaulted Dior to new heights.
Many scenes around Les Halles (which no longer exists as it did then).