My Own Little Palace in Paris
…which I am delighted to share with thousands of others
The Petit Palais in Paris is only a hundred and twenty years old — give or take half a decade. It was built, along with the Grand Palais across the street, for the Exposition Universelle of 1900. Two years later the Petit Palais was designated a museum, and today it is part of the glorious collection of free museums of the City of Paris.
So nobody has ever lived in the palace. But one can dream.
The Petit Palais is on the right bank of the Seine, a pleasant twenty minute walk from my home, and often along the path to or from another destination. It is easy to wander in and out again, particularly if you use the ground floor entrance where there is almost never a line as you pass through security.
Gustave Courbet’s Le Sommeil (The Sleepers, 1866), my favorite erotic painting of all time, is housed in one of the large galleries, along with a number of Courbet’s other nineteenth-century masterpieces. I’ve copped to my fondness for this extraordinary painting in another story.
