More about Lesage

Given all the questions and emails I received about yesterday's post, it seems obvious that I should have provided a little more information about Ecole Lesage.


Ecole Lesage, the embroidery school, is open to anyone. Classes for all levels, from beginner to professional, are offered throughout the year (except for August and the last week of December). Advance registration is required including a 30% deposit. The web-link to the school (which can be read in French, English or Japanese) provides more details about the courses available.

Instruction is available in both French and English. I sat at a table with a French instructor and was able to understand almost everything she said. When I had a question or problem that could not be solved with a demonstration, the English-speaking instructor intervened. (I understand French better than I can speak it.)

To see my flower brooch in more detail, please double-click on the photo in yesterday's post.

I can hardly wait to return to Ecole Lesage and would like to take the Silk ribbon Rococo pillow class or the Level 1 Flower Vase class. Next time I will also remember to pick up the two instructional books on embroidery that I somehow overlooked while I was at the school (the website does not indicate that the books can be shipped).

For those of you who have no interest in learning haute couture embroidery and would prefer to admire beautiful images of Lesage embroidery, there is an Assouline book by Lydia Kamitsis called "Lesage" published in 1999 and 2003.


This exquisite Balenciaga dress from 1961 is one of the photos in the book and is from the Lesage archives.

P.S. I counted 20 flowers on the front of this beautiful dress. Assuming the back has the same number of flowers, there would be approximately 40 flowers on the dress. If each flower takes between 3-6 hours to embroider, that is 120-240 hours of embroidery work!!! No wonder haute couture dresses are so expensive!

Ecole Lesage
1e rue de la Grange Bateliere
75009 Paris, France
01 44 79 00 88
Website: www.ecole-lesage-paris.com
Email: ecole-lesage@lesageparis.fr

Ecole Lesage

I have always wanted to learn to embroider and I decided to learn from the best. While in Paris, I spent a day at the Lesage atelier and ecole. (This over-the-top salute to embroidery was on the staircase outside the atelier.)

The Lesage atelier specializes in hand embroidery for haute couture and ready to wear garments. Now owned by Chanel, the atelier can trace its roots to the middle of the 19th century when Michonet embroidered for the house of Worth.

On a tour of the archives with the charming Monsieur Francois Lesage, I saw breathtakingly beautiful samples of embroidery from Vionnet, Yves Saint Laurent and other legendary designers. I wanted to clap when M. Lesage said "Embroidery is like a piece of art; you put yourself into it."

After seeing the dedication of his staff hunched over their worktables as they created wearable works of art, I could hardly wait for my lesson to begin at Ecole Lesage. Not long after sitting down to work, I realized how difficult this work is.

Although the instructors were highly skilled and extremely patient, I had to be shown some of the steps more than once and had to redo parts over. It was a painstaking 3 hour long effort to make an embroidered, beaded organza flower brooch.

I am now hooked on embroidery. The school offers an array of courses ranging in commitment from 3 to 150 hours. I want to go back!!

Ecole Lesage
13 rue de la Grange Bateliere
75009 Paris, France
01 44 79 00 88
www.ecole-lesage-paris.com
email: ecole-lesage@lesageparis.fr

Paris is my Muse!

Paris = Fashion...These past ten days in Paris have been a dream and I hardly know where to begin. My head is spinning with all that I've done and all that I've seen. I tried to squeeze in as much as possible during that time and I took hundreds of photos and filled up two sketchbooks. I bought countless postcards (including this fun one) and dragged back far too many heavy books on fashion. I am filled up with inspiration and delight. It will take me some time to digest it and incorporate it into my artwork and my writing. Stay tuned as I make Paris my muse!

Postcards from Paris - Arc de Triomphe

La place de l'Etoile, devenue place Charles -de-Gaulle et l'Arc de Triomphe

Twelve avenues radiate from the Arc de Triomphe, the customary starting point for victory celebrations and parades in Paris. This 50 metre high monumental building was conceived by Napolean after his greatest military victory the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Having promised his men that "You shall go home beneath triumphal arches", the first stone was laid the following year and work was completed in 1836 after many delays and disruptions (including Napolean's fall from power).

Postcards from Paris - The Basilica of the Sacre-Coeur

La Basilique du Sacre-Coeur, Paris
35 Rue adu Chevalier de la Barre, 75018
Bascilica open 6 am - 11 pm daily

When Prussia invaded France in 1870, two Catholic businessmen made a private religious vow to build a church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Christ if Paris was spared. Despite the lengthy siege of the city, the two men survived. Their project was taken up by Archbishop Guibert of Paris and work began in 1875 to Paul Abadie's Romano-Byzantine designs. The bascilica was completed in 1914 but consecration was forestalled until 1919 due to the war.

The Basilica, which is located in the artist's mecca of Montemartre, contains exquisite stained glass windows, a colossal mosaic of Christ in the chancel vault, a statue of Jone of Arc and many other religious treasures.

Postcards from Paris - Musee d'Orsay

Fin d'arabesque, 1876-1877 Edgar Degas

Musee d'Orsay
St-Germain des Pres
01 40 49 49 78

The Musee d'Orsay is home to the arts of 1848 to 1914 and includes many works that originally came from the Louvre. Opened in 1986, 47 years after it closed as a mainline railroad station, the Musee d'Orsay has an outstanding collection of Impressionist art, including many of my favourite Impressionist paintings by Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot and Fantin-Latour.

Postcards from Paris: Notre-Dame

Notre-Dame de Paris

The first stone of this Gothic masterpiece on the Ile de la Cite was laid by Pope Alexander III in 1163 on the site of a Roman temple. Completed 170 years later, the Notre-Dame is remarkable for the spectacular flying buttresses on the east end and beautiful stained glass Rose windows on the south and west facade. Works by important sculptors adorn the cathedral including Jean Ravy's old choir screen carvings, Nicolas Coustou's Pieta and Antoine Coysevox's Louis XIV statue.

During the French Revolution, the cathedral was ransacked, religion banned, and the church changed into a temple for the Cult of Reason. At one point it was even used as a wine store!

Napolean restored the cathedral and religion in 1804 and was crowned here, as were many kings and emperors.
Le Sacre de Napoleon 1st, detail de Josephine, 1806-1807 Louis David (1748-1825)

Postcards from Paris - Musee du Louvre

La Venus de Milo - La Jaconde - La Victoire de Samothrace

Musee du Louvre
Tuilleries Quarter
Open 9 am - 6 pm Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesday)
Free first Sunday of the month

The Musee du Louvre is home to one of the largest and most important art collections in the world. This vast museum, which began as a medieval fortress in the late 12th century, includes collections of:
European Painting 1200 - 1850
European Sculpture 1100-1850
Oriental antiquities
Egyptian antiquities
Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities
Arts of Islam, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas
Objects d'art (decorative arts like jewelry, furniture, tapestries)

Most people come to the Louvre to see the infamous Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) by Leonardo da Vinci, 1504 and never take time to see the many treasures in the Louvre. Sometimes I've been the only person in the galleries containing objects d'art. But is there any less artistry in this exquisite tapestry Eros and Psyche (c.1770)?

Book Review: Versailles, A Biography of a Palace

There is a lot of myth associated with Versailles. This book tells the real story behind this legendary palace and is a juicy read.

In anticipation of my trip there, I read this book and I am very glad that I did. Now I know that what a tourist sees today is quite different from what actually existed during the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. Each King made extensive alterations to the palace and since then there have been many more alterations.

For example, there used to be extra floors around the inner courtyards with some facades eventually reaching six stories. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI found privacy, fresh air and panoramic views from their rooftop rooms. These extra floors were described by Napolean's architect as courtyards "burdened with structures with no order or symmetry, their roofs or terraces piled on top of each other, making a real labyrinth from which the rainwater runs off with difficulty." (page 175) The removal of these top floors is an "irreparable loss for royal history".

I also gained a deeper understanding of what actually happened in Versailles from many perspectives including the traditions of ceremony, protocol, entertainment, dress, as well as fascinating details of how the thousands of support staff lived and worked the behind the scenes. Organized in a thematic rather than a sequential fashion, the book is not your typical boring history book and although it is not specifically about Marie Antoinette, she is mentioned often. This book is both entertaining and easy to read.

"Mentioned here for its sheer oddity, finally, is the use of the palace galleries by Louis XVI's brother, the clever and exquisitely polite comte de Provence, to stalk his sister-in-law, Marie-Antoinette, for who he burned with confused feelings. In the 1780s, when the prince was lodged in the Superintendency, he used to patrol the south wing's first-floor gallery in the hope of encountering "Rhodopovna," his code name for the queen, on her way to see her children, also lodged at the far end of the south wing. Halfway down the gallery with her footman, the queen would suddenly find her brother-in-law issuing from a side staircase, his prize for this subterfuge a few moments in her company and the chance to kiss her hand." (page 112)


If you are planning a trip to Versailles or want to read some scintilating facts about pre-revolutionary France, read this book. (By the way, Caroline Weber, author of Queen of Fashion, What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution, wrote the back cover blurb.)

Title: Versailles
Author: Tony Spawford
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, New York (2008)
Category: Non-fiction, history
Number of Pages: 254 (304 including endnotes)

Vintage Postcards from Versailles

Versailles, le Parterre nord
(the north flower beds)

The gardens of Versailles were formally styled into regular patterns of paths, groves, hedges and flower beds, pools of water and fountains.

After Marie Antoinette's husband became King, she undertook a redesign of the gardens of Versailles, making the Petit Trianon into her personal oasis of beauty and privacy. To read more about Marie Antoinette and her passion for gardening, please see my book review of "Marie-Antoinette and the Last Garden at Versailles" on April 7, 2009.

Vintage Postcards from Versailles

Le Panorama de Versailles

The Sun King, Louis XIV, made Versailles into the centre of political power in France during his reign. Originally a modest hunting lodge, Chateau de Versailles grew as a series of envelopes enfolding the original building, whose low brick wall is still visible in the centre. Evenutally, Versailles became the largest palace in Europe and was able to house 20,000 people at a time.

In 1838, an English visitor by the name of William Talmadge wrote: "The place is vast beyond all English imagination: one can hardly conceive it according to its purpose as a place of residence."

Versailles
01 30 83 78 00
Open 9am - 5 pm daily (summer hours until 6 pm)
www.chateauversailles.fr

P.S. This postcard was sent to me by my mother who visited Versailles about 25 years ago.

Photographs of Versailles at Musee d'art Contemporain de Montreal

Robert Polidori, Versailles, Salles d'Afrique, Portrait of Louis XVI by Callet #2, 2007

If you cannot make it to Versailles with me tomorrow, might I suggest a trip to see the retrospective of Robert Polidori's work which opens today at the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal.

Polidori, who was born in Montreal, is known for his exquisite photographs of places of historical importance. He has photographed such locations as Versailles, Havana, Chernobyl and New Orleans (after the flood). In photographs that seem larger than life and filled with breath-taking detail, Polidori evokes memory and the haunting beauty of decay.

The exposition at the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal is on from May 22 to September 7, 2009 and includes sixty works from the artist's principal series.

I had the pleasure of seeing Polidori's magnificent photographs of Versailles at the Nicolas Metivier Gallery in November 2008 (and wrote about it in a post on November 13, 2009). The exquisite beauty of the images has stayed with me.

I have pre-ordered Polidori's book called "Transitional States" which will be released on June 30, 2009. In this book, Polidori's charts 25 years of the conservation project at Versailles.