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Hello Lovelies! I have been aching for Paris this last week or so and the feeling just won't go away! Maybe because Spring is approaching and there is no place in the world more beautiful in the Springtime. Maybe because I have been brushing up on my French while teaching the little Little Prince to speak it...Maybe, it is because I left my heart there the last time I left. Whatever the reason, here is a tiny dose of Paris and some interesting little tidbits to tide us over.


~ In Paris you are never more that 400 meters from a subway station.


~ The Marseillaise, the French national anthem, was first sung in Strasbourg, not Marseille.


~ The novel La Disparition by Georges Perec, in its original French does not use the letter 'e'.



~ In French two weeks is in fact 15 days, quinze jours.


~ French politicians can simultaneously hold more than one elected office.


~ Lefevre is the most popular last name in France.


~ There are 27 wine regions in France.



~ Alsacien type homes are not considered immobilier, the French term for real estate that also means non-moveable, but in fact mobilier because they are demountable and thus can be moved. Alsacien type homes were built this way so that homes could be part of dowries.

~Facts via Americans In France~
 

Dior Haute Couture’s handpainted and embroidered silk taffeta dress. John Rocha socks, Louis Vuitton shoes with Mokuba ribbons.

Can you just imagine turning the key in the keyhole of a beautiful old building in Paris to enter an apartment that for over 70 years lay untouched. With the rent faithfully paid, the doors locked, and an incredible treasure trove hiding inside, this apartment remained a secret. That is, until the apartments last occupant recently passed away at the age of 91. She shut the apartment up just before the outbreak of World War II to go live in the south of France and she never returned. The dust filled romantic rooms of treasure were discovered by  an auctioneer sent to inventory her belongings.


That is only part of the romantic story of the apartment of the granddaughter of Marthe de Florian, a beautiful actress of the early screen. When this lucky auctioneer entered the dust-covered Parisian apartment to take inventory of the possessions, he was quoted saying that he "had the impression of creeping into Sleeping Beauty’s castle where time had stood still". In the beautiful decaying apartment he came across a painting, which had hung in the living room, of an actress of exceptional beauty who went by the name of Marthe de Florian, enshrouded in a pale pink mousseline evening dress. The real story here is that this portrait was painted by one of 19-century Paris’ most prized portrait artists, Italian Giovanni Boldini.


The auctioneer had a hunch that this painting was made by the famous Boldini but could not find any record of the painting, it was not in any reference books and it had never been exhibited. After extensive research he found  one of Boldini’s calling cards in the apartment with a love message by the painter written to de Florian. Knowing this was the link, he continued his search and found proof that this painting was indeed a Boldini after finding mention of it in a book belonging to the painters widow.



Marthe de Florian had hosted her many admirers in the apartment where “she kept letters from her lovers in little packages wrapped up with ribbons of different colors,” according to one of the people who worked on the inventory. The calling cards of senior statesmen from the period were found tucked away in drawers.

Last week in Paris a thief is believed to have carried out one of the largest and most brazen art heists in history. The thief broke into The Musuem of Modern Art through a window that had a faulty alarm system and was awaiting repair.

He made off with works by Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani. The stolen masterpieces (including 'Le Pigeon aux petit pois' by Picasso, Henri Matisse’s "Pastoral," Georges Braque’s "Olive Tree Near Estaque," Fernand Léger’s "Still Life With Chandeliers,'' and Amedeo Modigliani’s ''Woman With Fan').

Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe confirmed that the raid was the most costly in the history of French art and called it ‘an intolerable attack on Paris’s universal cultural heritage’.  According to The Art Loss Register, only 12-15% of stolen art is ever recovered. They also state that Picasso is the most stolen artist in the world with 660 (including the most recent one stolen in Paris) missing works of art by the artist.


Art thieves have struck again in France this weekend by stealing five pictures from the home of an art collector in Marseille only a day after the major heist in Paris, the stolen pictures include a Picasso lithograph.
French police said Saturday the owner was beaten up at his home in southern France on Friday and the art stolen.




~Biggest Art Heists in History~
May 2010: A lone thief stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist at a Paris modern art museum.

February 2008: Armed robbers stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from the E.G. Buehrle Collection, a private museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The van Gogh and Monet paintings were recovered.

December 2007: A painting by Pablo Picasso valued at about $50 million, along with one by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari valued at $5 million to $6 million, were stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil, by three burglars using a crowbar and a car jack. The paintings were later found.

February 2007: Two Picasso paintings, worth nearly $66 million, and a drawing were stolen from the Paris, France home of the artist's granddaughter in an overnight robbery. Police later recovered the art when the thieves tried to sell it.

February 2006: Around 300 museum-grade artifacts worth an estimated $142 million, including paintings, clocks and silver, were stolen from a 17th-century manor house at Ramsbury in southern England, the largest property theft in British history, according to reports.

February 2006: Four works of art and other objects, including paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Monet and Salvador Dali, were stolen from the Museu Chacara do Ceu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by four armed men during a Carnival parade. Local media estimated the paintings' worth at around $50 million.

August 2004: Two paintings by Edvard Munch, The Scream and Madonna, insured for $141 million, were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway by three men in a daylight raid. The paintings were recovered nearly two years later.

August 2003: A $65 million Leonardo da Vinci painting was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland after two men joined a public tour and overpowered a guide. It was recovered four years later.

May 2003: A 16th-century gold-plated Saliera, or salt cellar, by Florentine master Benvenuto Cellini, valued at $69.3 million, was stolen from Vienna's Art History Museum by a single thief when guards discounted a burglar alarm. The figurine was later recovered.

December 2002: Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by Van Gogh valued at $30 million. Dutch police convicted two men in December 2003, but did not recover the paintings.

December 2000: Hooded thieves stole a self-portrait by Rembrandt and two Renoir paintings worth an estimated $36 million from Stockholm's waterfront National Museum, using a motorboat in their escape. All paintings were recovered.

October 1994: Seven Picasso paintings worth an estimated $44 million were stolen from a gallery in Zurich, Switzerland. They were recovered in 2000.

April 1991: Two masked armed men took 20 paintings - worth at least $10 million each at the time - from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. The paintings were found in the getaway car less than an hour later.

March 1990: In the biggest art theft in U.S. history, $300 million in art, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Manet, was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, by two men in police uniforms.

December 1988: Thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, with an estimated value of $72 million to $90 million, from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in a remote section of the Netherlands. Police later recovered all three paintings.

May 1986: A Vermeer painting, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, is among 18 paintings worth $40 million stolen from Russborough House in Blessington, Ireland. Some of the paintings are later recovered.

August 1911: Perhaps the most famous case of art theft occurred when the Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by employee Vinczo Peruggia, who was caught two years later.

~Art Heist History, The Daily Mail-UK