At The Louvre

April 29th we were at the Louvre again. There is a lot of renovation going on, with many room closures, blank walls, paintings not where we remembered them to be. The entire French painting division was closed. We spent our time mainly in the Belgian and Netherlandish precincts, many old friends and a few discoveries.

Lingering in the huge hall of giant Rubens paintings
glorifying Marie Medici

Three Graces or possibly three Rhinemaidens

Moving right along, Steen's Bad Company

Vermeer's Lacemaker

His Astronomer; why isn't he looking at the stars?!

Among the Louvre's sculpture courts

Vaulting

Gerard Dou, The Dropsical Woman or Doctor Examining
the Urine of a Sick Woman, 1663; I know I have posted
this before...

What we didn't know was that the above, Dou's
Silver Ewer, is actually a hinged cover for the (presumably)
more valuable Dropsical Woman; said to be a common
practice in 17th century Flemish work, only a few examples
have survived

Rembrandt's Bathesheba, 1654

Willem Drost's Bathsheba, 1654; Drost was Rembrandt's
pupil

One of Hals' more formal portraits...Descartes, after 1650; interesting
to compare the brushwork on the more formal portraits with that of
his tronies

Thus, his Jester with a Lute, 1624

Another favorite Steen, Merrymaking at an Inn, 1674

Steen, Festive Family Meal, 1674

Detail

A late Rubens landscape, Landscape with a Bird Catcher, 1640;
anticipating Turner?

Rubens' better known Village Wedding, 1640

La Rotonde

For whatever reasons, we haven't been eating out very much...Mollard, Relais d'Entrecote, a couple others...the proximity of great markets and especially La Parisienne have kept us eating in, too. Plus some of us enjoy cooking; some are actually good at it. Unfortunately not the same persons. In any case, at the intersection of Raspail and Montparnasse, half a kilometer from our apartment, are four famous restaurants we've been wanting to try: La Rotonde, La Coupole, La Select, and La Dome. On the advice of a nearby shopkeeper ("where the French eat"), we dined April 28th at La Rotonde, at Place Picasso (he had an apartment nearby), a memorable repas for me.

Famous Lost Generation hangout, said to be among President
Macron's favorites

A proper Ricard

Properly mixed

My assiette de fruits de mer for one, absolutely all I could eat:
9 oysters, 3 shrimp, 3 mussels, 3 clams, sea snails large and small
without number

Perhaps the last time Vicki will order plain old steak 

Big shrimp

Very small snails

Modigliani reproductions all over

As in all such Paris restaurants, the oysters live outside, on the sidewalk

Rodin's hideous Monument a Balzac just out the door

But a beautiful walk back home

Walking In The Lower Marais

We'd seen much of the Marais over the years--there's much to see, and we had an apartment there in 2022--and also much of both the 3rd and 4th Arrondissements that include bits of the Marais. For our walk on Tuesday, April 28th, we wanted to do just those bits in the 3rd that are closest to the river, and, in view of a big dinner planned that evening, not to tax ourselves too greatly.

We started with the big Baroque church on Rivoli, St. Paul's,
Paris' first Baroque church; note the uniform capitals: not
really French Baroque

Knave view

Only front rows get the kneelers

Big organ; does size matter?

Mary crowns Baby J King of the Junior Bowling League

Thrashing the Protestants; what Baroque is about

'92 (and '93) was not a good year for clerics; nor for
royalty, nor for anyone Robespierre didn't like

Prior to heading off for the Third Crusade, King Philip
Augustus ordered a wall to be built around the city--the
Wall of Philip II Augustus--traces of which can be seen
in the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th Arrondissements; but the 
largest remnant is here near Rue Charlemagne...60 some
meters of wall along with bits of two of the many towers
that were built; it was Paris' first city wall

The wall was built between 1190 and 1213

The Wikipedia has a fine article on the wall

Moving right along, bird villages in the courtyards of
the St. Paul village

Interesting architecture

Massillon School annex, 1935

Creche kids

Now walking along the Port of the Arsenal, the beginnings
of the Canal St. Martin; the Place de la Bastille in the distance

Houseboat, probably, but looks like a Class C RV plopped down
on a boat...

Now we have crossed the Place de la Bastille and are looking up
at the pretty building with the humongous plaque

Sic transit, Gloria; about all the attention the storming of the Bastille
gets nowadays; they don't even call it Bastille Day; really

Looking back at the 1830 monument; different revolution

Canine supply, Fido fare, love the multi-lingual word play (appart
is a contraction of appartement)

Into the Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris, extremely fashionable
in the 17th and 18th centuries; Victor Hugo lived here in the 19th

Also fashionable in the 21st

On the Rue des Rosiers, more Sic transit, Gloria...a former
Hamam, now a COS, a fashion brand... 

In the Joseph Migneret Garden, with a plaque naming the scores of
persons he saved from the Germans in WWII

Lastly, remnant of another one of the towers of the
Philip Augustus wall; dumpster storage