Our first visit to the Musee de Carnavalet 4-28-15

We started out the trip with a picnic lunch in a hidden garden of the national archives.  Then on to the Musee de Carnavalet, which is the museum dedicated to the history of Paris specifically.  It's housed in two 17th century Parisian Mansions (hotels des particuliers) and covers Paris from it's founding up to the current time.   We visited this museum many years ago, but this is our first visit this trip.  It's a free museum for the most part but they do have temporary exhibitions for which one can buy tickets. The current exhibition deals with Napoleon Bonaparte, on the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo.  We'll save that for another visit, today was just a ramble through the general collection.   They have several rooms dedicated to specific time periods with paneling and decoration having been removed from buildings being renovated or demolished and then being reconstructed in the museum.

Today's venture took us into 18th and 19th century rooms, with sumptuous decorations on walls and ceilings.  There were many installations relating to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, showing furniture from their private rooms.   How this did not all get destroyed during the revolution is a fortunate thing, and perhaps some of it is only representative of the time period.   They are not particularly over the top (by today's standards), but still very high quality. 



Additionally we found the completed portrait of Benjamin Franklin that I mentioned during our visit to the Petit Palais two days ago.  









We had our continuing enjoyment of art from the time period which we collect at home.  Specifically, from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.  We found a painting that really knocked us out. 









Then there was the storefront and showroom of G. Fouquet, designed by Alfonse Mucha, which ushered in the Art Nouveau movement in architecture.








After the museum we headed back to the apartment, but not before Deb explored an interesting courtyard and came up with a very interesting store related sewing.  It has now become a must do place for taking my sister, Gail, when she visits in July.