Désirs et Volupté

Fall in Paris is usually the time for many exhibition openings... This week I had the Gala Dinner organized by Culturespaces at the Musée Jacquemart-André, which is quite near from home and it's one of my favourite locations. Challenging the early rains of these past days, I accepted the invitation to discover the English artists of the Victorian Era, who celebrated beauty above all things: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Frederic Leighton, Edward Burne-Jones, the fabulous Dante Gabriel Rossetti, among others.

Les Roses d'Heliogabale, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. An emblematic painting of the time.

Venus Verticordia, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I know the paintings might look a bit kitsch or baroque, so different to the works by the Impressionists who, in those years, ruled in France; but they are the result of their time and icons of British art. Although forgotten for many years, it is now that these artists are beginning to be valued by critics and artlovers.

The exhibition will be shown also in Rome, on February 2014, at the Chiostro de Bramante, and will then travel to Madrid, to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (June - October 2014).

It's worth visiting and use the oportunity to spend some time in this small museum, a true jewel of French architecture of the 19th Century...