Carnavalet

On Tuesday, a walk past the Centre Pompidou (architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini) to Musée Carnavalet.

The adjacent Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was closed so something to see next time and there is more than enough in the Carnavalet to occupy ninety minutes. My favourite small museum in Paris is the Musée Nissim de Camondo but it has been closed for restoration since August 2024 another good reason to come back when it reopens. There is an interesting, at least I think so, connection with the Salon Demarteau at Carnavalet.

Gilles Demarteau (1722-1776) was an etcher, engraver and publisher living on the Île de Cité. He asked three of his friends to decorate the walls of his apartment. The result is a fantasy of an idyllic country scene that gave me as much pleasure as it must have given Gilles Demarteau.

They are well worth looking at as Demarteau’s friends are François Boucher, who did most of the work, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, who painted the flowers, and Jean-Baptiste Huet who painted the animals. It is unusual to see three such famous artists cooperating on a composite work. Here are examples of their solo pictures.

Other large eye-catchers are trompe l’oeil pictures above the stone staircase. They were originally at the Hôtel de Luynes since demolished, and are by Italian painter, Paolo Antonio Brunetti.

And so to lunch, my first visit to Restaurant Drouant, founded in 1880 by Charles Drouant.

“Since October 31, 1914 the jury members of the Prix Goncourt have been gathering on the first Tuesday of each month in Drouant’s first-floor lounge named salon Goncourt. During the November meetings, the jury vote for the Goncourt winner of the year.” (Wikipedia) The 2025 Prix Goncourt was awarded to Laurent Mauvignier for his novel, La Maison Vide (The Empty House); a multi-generational family saga exploring memory, silence, and history through a closed family home, spanning four generations affected by world wars.

I had foie gras and vol-au-vent volaille with ris de veau, champignons de saison and sauce Albufera. The sauce was named for the Duke of Albufera (one of Napoleon’s generals) by his chef.