Ceramic facade
Labels :
Ceramic facade (Sèvres),
Family,
Mattias,
Paloma,
Paris 6
Walking along the Boulevard St. Germain - from places I showed on my most recent posts (including maps) -, heading for the church Saint-Germain-des- Prés, (or Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots or whatever) I would suggest that you stop at the small garden or ancient church yard, just behind the church, and have a look at this spectacular ceramic façade which covers the gable of an adjacent building – very few people seem to pay attention.
I had great difficulties to find any information about it, but it seems that it was originally part of the Sèvres Pavillion during the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris and later put here. Why here, I don’t know, possibly that we are close to the Rue de Sèvres, which leads to Sévres and the Sèvres Manufacture? I even found the names of the creators (Charles Risier and Jules Courtan), but nothing about them. I think that this “monument” would be worth some more attention!
I had great difficulties to find any information about it, but it seems that it was originally part of the Sèvres Pavillion during the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris and later put here. Why here, I don’t know, possibly that we are close to the Rue de Sèvres, which leads to Sévres and the Sèvres Manufacture? I even found the names of the creators (Charles Risier and Jules Courtan), but nothing about them. I think that this “monument” would be worth some more attention!
Let’s remember that the 1900 Universal Exhibition somehow was an “art nouveau” exhibition and that the Pont Alexandre III bridge (see my post of June 7, 2007), the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Gare de Lyon, the Gare d’Orsay (now the Orsay Museum) and many other buildings were created for this occasion. (Most of the pavilions were of course considered as temporary and disappeared after the exhibition.) During this Exhibition, the first metros started to run. … and the second Olympic Games took place in Paris.(A few of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.)
Before closing for today, I wanted to show you some further spring progress in “my” park, although the weekend weather could have been better.
The weather was anyhow good enough to allow Paloma and Mattias to have some outdoor fun in the Jardin du Ranélagh.
My new “toy” is fairly new on the market and draws some attention to it!Addendum:
Thanks to Maxime we have answers to my questions above:
Charles Risler was a Parisian architect who also designed the pavilion for the department store "Au Printemps" for the same Universal Exhibition.
Jules Félix Coutan has made several sculptures around Paris which can be found e.g. at the Palais de Justice ("La Clémence"), Opéra Comique ("Cariatides"), the National Library ("La Calligraphie"), the Bir-Hakeim Bridge ("La Science", "Le Travail"). One of his monumental works ("Les Chasseurs d'Aigles") can be found at the Orsay Museum. (You can se the Bir-Hakeim sculptures on one of my previous posts.)
We had first a walk in the Tuileries Gardens. Both Paloma (now five years) and Mattias (now 16 months) were happy to be able to walk and run around freely. 
After a warm chocolate (and coffee for me), and the daylight disappearing, we decided to make a tour on the wheel. This gave me the opportunity to take a photo of the Champs Elysées in the opposite direction, compared to the one I recently took from the 
When leaving the family, starting to walk, I stopped at the Madeleine Church (five minutes from Place de la Concorde), as I was surprised by a small demonstration with banners and torches organised in honour of the poor King Louis XVI, who was guillotined on Place de la Concorde 215 years ago (January 21st, 1793). There are still some fervent royalists around! 
Some of these pictures can be found on my 
