red stuff, green stuff

what should a discerning librarianette nibble whilst watching all four episodes of lost in austen for the third time ?

some of the astonishing rubens series commissioned by marie de medici to celebrate and legitimize her regency of the french throne

... after her husband's unfortunate assassination

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225634&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225634&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500812&bmLocale=en

in the louvre ... the big (next?) version of the national gallery's picture by the anonymous master of the saint bartholomew altarpiece

!!! not ingres but gericault !!! predicting/preceding balthus

http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=15358

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gericault

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthus

and here's a sharper image of the strange little painting from the louvre's website ...

insouciance

the social whirl in the sculpture courts of the louvre

evidently a librarian ... and here's a polar bear passing by another librarian who is clearly unable to remember where she's left her books

toujours la politesse

standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by ... tiddly-pom tiddly-tiddly-pom

in our room there were loads of lovely old books ...

... and we found big volumes of profusely illustrated victor hugo novels ... the hunchback ...

... and les miserables ...

... & in the bibliotheque nationale, where you are not allowed to photograph les globes du roi soleil, some more light reading, as enjoyed by m.proust

the patron saint of club doormen

place vendome .. every one we met was asking about you ...

proust's little river "vivonne" at illiers-combray

i meant to write to you all ...

... but there just wasn't time ...

it's an acquired taste ...

home again, home again, jiggity-jig !

one night in paris ...

we're off to the land of temps perdus on this coming saturday ....


i'll be wearing my lon chaney wig ... so don't miss next week's exciting episode !

... and six nights in chartres

... where i hope to emulate chaney's heroics, climbing both steeples by moonlight without a rope ... even now, with this stupendous goal in mind, i am strengthening my fingernails by soaking them overnight in a homeopathic concentrate of hot sperm oil and dapper dan ( made from baby seals )

tree surgeons have been thinning the lovely trees between the tenements ... most of the greenery went in to the shredder

http://www.british-trees.com/treeguide/oaks/nbnsys0000003843.htm

gaudier than thou

bridge over the river wye ... at chepstow

no wonder the chepstow lads looked so wide-eyed