Paris main page

Introduction

Musee Picasso

Musee Carnavalet

Musee Cognaq Jay and walk

Place des Vosges
Musee Victor Hugo

Jewish area-Rue des Rosiers

Carreau du Temple market-Musee du Judaisme

Village Saint - Paul Hotel de Sens

Ile de la Cite
Cathedrale 
Notre Dame de Paris

Ile Saint-Louis

Place Hotel de Ville

Paris -3rd/4th arr-Marais-Picasso museum

Paris dining world!!!!

A dark, narrow alley leads to a little garden, or better said a fountain...without light, without air, a pestiferous receptacle for the dirt that falls down from the first floor...." That's the way the French writer Eugene Sue (1804-1857) described the rue du Temple 17 during the renovation of this area. Our walk starts here (a side street of the rue de Rivoli, near the BHV department store). 
 The rue du Temple is one of the oldest of the area, noticeable by its narrow, surelevated houses, mainly with jewellers and trinket shops.  At the right you will see the HOTEL DE SOUBISE, where the state archives are stored.Unfortunately you cannot visit them but you can admire a few exemplars in the MUSEE DE L'HISTOIRE DE FRANCE, rue des Francs Bourgeois.We make a left at the rue Rambuteau and a right in the rue des Quatre Fils and we arrive at the HOTEL DE ROHAN, built in 1708 for Armand de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg at 87, rue Vieille du Temple. Last time I went there it was closed for renovations but it should be open again. Maybe you can now admire the "sun rose" by Le Lorrain, sculpted with delicacy. 

Hotel Bruant-Musee Serrure

At the right, on the rue de la Perle no.1, the "MUSEE DE LA SERRURE" (Lock museum). The key manufacturer Bricard organized this small private museum in the hotel Liberal Bruant (1685). On display, keys and locks from the Gallo-Roman times until the 19th century, with a few items from the royal house.  We continue and make a left into the rue de Thorigny. We arrive at a very important and beautiful museum, the MUSEE PICASSO, at the left side, located in a superb hotel de maitre, the hotel "Sale". It was built in the 17th century for a “ tax collector on salt” (gabelle in old French), Robert de Fontenay. The fortune he made like that (today he would be sentenced to jail for practises like that!) Salt, meaning “sel” in French, you can guess where the name of  "l'hotel Sale" came from. The facade on the courtyard is not very decorated but inside is a magnificent interior stairway, enhanced with "ignudi" (antique busts) and a lot of sculptures. The museum, besides being an ideal setting for Picasso's works, presents a perfect retrospective of his life production, not with minor works but with master pieces covering his total career from the beginning to the end. It’s after his death in 1973 that about 200 paintings, 160 sculptures, 80 ceramics and 3000 drawings and sculptures were given to the French state as succession duties (inheritance taxes) The exhibition halls, very well lit, are easy to walk and you are constantly informed by concise and understandable (!!) information panels. 

Musee Picasso-interior and staircase

The presentation of the collection is chronological, beginning with the "blue" period, the "pink" period and studies for the "Demoiselles d'Avignon". Now come the most representative works of the cubist period. Cubist masterworks as "l'Homme a la guitare", "Nature morte a la chaise cannee" were created.
The displayed works continue in the same chronological order with other remarkable pieces like the plastic "Woman with the baby-carriage" and absolute top works like "L'Homme a la Pipe", "Le peintre et son modele", " Portrait d'Olga". Other works to see on the first floor: "the "Pan Flute" (1923) and the "Kiss" (1925) which violent character reflects a crisis period the artist had at that time. During your itinerary continues you will notice the incredible number of extra-marital adventures this man had and how it affected his paintings. New forms, from the cubist to the neo-classic period, baroque (see the heavy nudes) to surrealism.
Don't forget to visit also Picasso's private collection of other painters: Chardin, Cezanne, Matisse, Derain, Rousseau, and Renoir (those seem to have influenced him most of all)

Bibliography:

--Vie et histoire des arrondissements de Paris, ed.Hervas (1985-1988--Nouvelle Histoire de Paris, ed.Hachette--Le Pieton de Paris, by L.P.Fargue, ed.Gallimard 1997--Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris, by A.Fierro, ed.Laffont, 1996--Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris, by J.Hillairet, ed.Minuit--Dictionnaire des monuments de Paris, by J.Colson and M.C.Lauroa,ed.Hervas 1992--Guide du Routard 1998-1999 (Ed.Hachette)--Paris, 2000 d'histoire, by J.Favier, ed.Fayard 1997--Naissance de Paris, by M.Fleury, ed.Imprimerie Nationale 1997--Paris 19eme siecle, l'immeuble et la rue, by F.Loyer, ed.Hazan, 1994