Yesterday we spent the day at the d’Orsay Museum. Photos are no longer allowed there, so this will be a image-less post. After a full day we decided that at least one, maybe two more days will be required to see what we want to see. (Not the entire collection.)

There are three special shows at the moment and two of them are included in the general admission. Wow! First Felicie de Fauveau blew me away. This exhibit of this 19th century female scupltor entitled The Amazon Sculptress is fantastic. This woman’s work is astounding, collected by museums all over the world, and little known due to her gender in a century where it mattered. Her work in marble, brass, and terra cotta is extremely evocative. Her self portrait sculpture from 1846 won a national prize and is unbelievable. She was my artistic find of the day.

The second special exhibit is the Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection. These rich Americans have amassed a collection of French art from the 19th and 20th centuries. They particularly like drawing, so there are a number of drawings from famous artists. Voulliard, Denis, Redon, Fantin-Latour, Tissot, Caillebote, Corot, Derain, Morisot, Eva Gonzales, Matisse, Modigliani, Bonnard, Ranson, Roussel, Degas, Renoir… It must be nice to be rich and have these decorating your dining room, living room, bedroom and boudoir. They have loaned the collection from both their Nashville and NYC homes to this special exhibit. It was quite a unique experience to get to see these masterpieces. Who knows when it will happen again? It closes next week. We are very lucky to have been here for this show.

We did see much of the 19th century collection, but did not have time for impressionism or post-impressionism. That remains for the next several days.

Today Jean went to visit a famous international pastel company about which I will let her tell the story. I went to a local park for sketching. Here is one of my sketches from the day, ink and wash. This is the sort of sketch that Maillol did for practice. Go out, find an interesting leaf, and draw it. I also did a number of quick sketches of people in the park, but they rarely stood still long enough for more than a few lines to catch a gesture or pose. A great couple of days!