Art Nouveau was a decorative style of applied art that flowered in Paris from around 1890 through to the First World War. And flowering was the operative word, for Art Nouveau was inspired by the flowing forms and soft shades of nature — think tendrils, lilies and dragonflies; pale green finishes and shimmering floral mosaics. […]
Old Paris
In Search of Catherine de Medici’s Paris
One of history’s most influential (not to mention infamous) leaders, Catherine de Medici still enthralls and intrigues the world five hundred years after her birth. Case in point: The Serpent Queen, the new period drama series based on Leonie Frieda’s best-selling biography, Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France. In 1533, the Florentine heiress, aged […]
The Perfectly Delightful Place Dauphine
Paris is peppered with nooks and crannies that seem like gorgeous secrets, that make you feel as though you’ve come across a place only the lucky ones know about. But Place Dauphine surely must be at the top of that list. Perhaps it’s because so many people might easily walk right by. If you’re too […]
A Meander through Medieval Paris
You might not at first connect Paris with medieval times, or the so-called Dark Ages. Paris is the City of Light, after all. Of enlightenment. The city that came of age in the grand siècle — the seventeenth century — when grand new buildings and monuments were carved from bright limestone, when the Sun King […]