I can just imagine how tickled I would have been at 13 or 14, in full francophile and feminine bloom, to have received a series of biographies of great women in French — and in graphic novel format.
Naïve is a small independent French publisher of books and music, and they’ve come [...]
Now I know what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life… As soon as I get an iPad, that is. Which may now be sooner than I had thought because the Bibliothèque nationale de France has just released Gallica for iPad. And it’s free. The app contains 240,000 books, 880,000 magazines [...]
And we thought we knew everything about Marie Antoinette! Well, whether or not it has any basis in reality, it looks luscious. How can it not be? We’ll be seeing it, that’s for sure.
More about Farewell My Queen on Facebook.
An 18th-century portrait sold in New York to a British gallery as a “woman in a feathered hat” turns out to actually portray a man dressed as a woman, becoming the earliest known painting of a transvestite. (Read how they figured it out…)
The portrait is of Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont, a [...]
As part of a vigorous publicity campaign, the American Committee for Devastated France, a civilian relief organization, commissioned photographs and films designed to foster a humanitarian response to the plight of French refugees during and after the First World War. Full-page images ran in American newspapers and sets of prints were sold [...]
In this poster (De Gaulle, 1965), la République (incarnated by a little girl version of Marianne) asks to be allowed to grow up. De Gaulle is represented by the starry cuff of his sleeve.
See the rest at Affiches électorales : la bataille de limage 1965-2012.
The bells that have been ringing every 15 minutes since 1856 in the towers of Notre Dame are being melted down and reforged. The Diocese of Paris says they’re ”mediocre in quality and of discordant tonality.”
Not sure I want bells that are in tune. It’s like having perfect teeth; no character…
Read [...]
A fascinating documentary on the story of the iconic Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co.
From Google videos: Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man.
We could wander these virtual stacks for days! So far, the Bibliothèque nationale de France has digitized more than one million works, including books, maps, manuscripts, images, periodicals, scores and sound recordings, and made them available for free to the public at the Gallica digital library. This is France’s answer to Google [...]
The Bayeux Tapestry famously offers a pictorial interpretation of the Norman Conquest of England (1066), a pivotal moment in medieval history, and the events leading to the invasion itself.
Read the rest at Open Culture.
…once upon a time, the ability to speak French properly was considered an absolute essential. In 26 chapters, each focusing on a different colourful Francophile, Fumaroli makes his way across 18th-century Europe. The book is a gallery of Russians, Prussians, Swedes, Poles, Italians and Englishmen; politicians, soldiers, kings and collectors, who all aspired [...]
During WWI, Léon Bel, creator of La Vache Qui Rit, saw the design above on trucks that transported fresh meat to the troops at the front. The troops named this cow the Wachkyrie, a play on the German word Walkyrie, to annoy their adversaries.
When the time came to design his packaging, Bel recalled having [...]
G. Lalo, the Parisian social stationery manufacturer since 1919, became throughout the years the stationery of reference both in Paris’ high society and in the royal courts of Europe such as Sweden, Holland, Monaco and Belgium.
G. Lalo products and many other French stationery brands are distributed in the US by
The Normans gave English about 10,000 words. Watch The History of English in Ten Minutes. Hilarious and great animation.
A compelling, intimate portrait of the Bonapartes, delving into the conflicted relationship between Napoleon and his beloved brother Lucien, the most talented of the Bonaparte brothers, who not only can be credited for helping Napoleon seize power, but who had a promising political career of his own. He was a romantic, an idealist, and [...]
Tags
advertising animation apps architecture aristocracy artisanat d'art bande-dessinée Bastille Day beaux arts books business contest design ecology education film francophile francophobia francophonie icon kids kitsch literature luxury music objet culte photography politics risqué stage television tradition video vintageArchives
- January 2015 (1)
- June 2014 (1)
- April 2014 (1)
- August 2013 (1)
- July 2013 (1)
- June 2013 (1)
- May 2013 (1)
- March 2013 (1)
- January 2013 (1)
- October 2012 (1)
- July 2012 (2)
- June 2012 (4)
- May 2012 (7)
- April 2012 (4)
- March 2012 (6)
- February 2012 (7)
- January 2012 (2)
- November 2011 (1)
- October 2011 (1)
- September 2011 (5)
- August 2011 (13)
- July 2011 (14)
- June 2011 (22)
- May 2011 (13)
- April 2011 (11)
- March 2011 (13)
- February 2011 (12)
- January 2011 (22)
- December 2010 (22)
- November 2010 (31)
- October 2010 (33)
- September 2010 (33)
- August 2010 (33)
- July 2010 (35)
- June 2010 (34)
- May 2010 (51)
- April 2010 (49)
- March 2010 (61)
- February 2010 (32)
- January 2010 (25)
- December 2009 (29)
- November 2009 (35)
- October 2009 (28)
- September 2009 (27)
- August 2009 (15)
- July 2009 (19)
- June 2009 (21)
- May 2009 (27)
- April 2009 (23)
- March 2009 (1)