We loved this video by the Mairie de Paris telling the story of the iconic Paris department store (and registered monument) Samaritaine. It also tells about the plans to restore it, which include shops, offices, a luxury hotel, a daycare center and subsidized housing!
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Gallica, the best of French culture at your fingertips
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 470,000 images. Also original musical scores, manuscripts and other goodies. Watch the video, and download the app (French store link).
No iPad? Enjoy the riches on the web.
Earliest known painting of a transvestite
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…)
Seems the makers of the 24-episode Japanese animé series, Le Chevalier d’Eon, took a lot of liberties with the Chevalier’s history! And his appearance… Watch the trailer.
American women helped rebuild post WWI France
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 for three dollars a dozen. Among the most affecting images were portraits featuring the craggy faces of the proud, elderly farmers of Picardy and the beautiful faces of French children—some posed in shabby clothing; others neatly dressed as they engaged in volunteer-sponsored activities.
See photos, videos and more at The Morgan Library & Museum Online Exhibitions. If you live in Palm Beach FL, the photos are on exhibit till March 31 at the Wally Findlay Gallery.
French presidential election posters 1965-2012
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.
Notre Dame getting new bells
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 the rest at the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man”
A fascinating documentary on the story of the iconic Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co.
From Google videos: Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man.
Gallica, France’s digital library
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 Books, and the result of the big fight from a couple of years ago.
Mullin Automotive Museum in LA preserves French Art Deco cars
The Mullin Automotive Museum, a Southern California institution dedicated to the preservation of French Art Deco era art and automobiles, announced today that its latest book, French Curves: Delahaye ∙ Delage ∙ Talbot-Lago, will be unveiled to the public this August at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
We covered the first volume in this series, The Art of Bugatti, here. French Curves is the second volume, and you can buy them both directly from the publisher. If you ask, you can get them signed by author Michael Furman too!
The Bayeux Tapestry animated
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.
“When the World Spoke French”
…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 to speak and write the French language beautifully…
Read the rest at The Independent and buy the book at our Amazon store!
Why the Vache Qui Rit is laughing…
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 seen this design and decided to use it as a starting point. He asked Benjamin Rabier, the original Wachkyrie artist, to make him a friendly cow that would appeal to the public. Thus the Vache Qui Rit… And it was Léon Bel’s wife who asked them to give the cow earrings!
If you speak French, read the whole story and see some great vintage Vache packaging at Ma culture confiture and learn more about Benjamin Rabier’s role at ROCBO.
Iconic French brand G. Lalo, social stationery manufacturer
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 Exaclair, the company that is providing our August 2011 giveaway. Find Exaclair paper products at the Francophilia Amazon store!
France Telecom bids adieu to the Minitel
France Telecom said today that it was shutting down its ground-breaking Minitel service, the proto-Internet that brought online shopping and chat rooms into millions of French homes in the 1980s.
Read the rest at PCMag.com.
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