An Australian friend of mine just sent me a link on facebook to this amazing article than I wanted to share.
The blog in question is
Messy Nessy Chic via an article appearing in The Telegraph.
A Parisian apartment left untouched for over 70 years was discovered in
the quartier of Pigalle a few summers ago and I’ve been meaning to share
the pictures with you. Time to unlock the vault …
The
owner of this apartment, Mrs. De Florian left Paris just before the
rumblings of World War II broke out in Europe. She closed up her
shutters and left for the South of France, never to return to the city
again. Seven decades lataway she passed away at the age of 91. It was
only when her heirs enlisted the help of professionals to make an
inventory of the Parisian apartment she left behind, that this time
capsule was finally unlocked.
The
team that had the honor of opening what must have been a very stiff old
lock for the first time in 70 years, likened the experience to
‘stumbling into the castle of sleeping beauty’. The smell of dust, the
cobwebs, the silence, was overwhelming; a once in a lifetime experience.
There
is a further twist to the story. In the apartment a painting of
familiar style was discovered depicting a beautiful woman in a pink
evening robe. One of the inventory team members suspected this might be a
very important piece of treasure. Along with the painting, they also
found stacks of old love letters tied with colored ribbon.
With
some expert historical opinion, the ribbon-bound love letters were
quickly recognized as the calling card of none other than Giovanni
Boldini, one of Paris’ most important painters of the Belle Époque. The
painting was his. The beautiful woman pictured in the painting was Mrs.
de Florian’s grand-mother, Marthe de Florian, a beautiful French actress
and socialite of the Belle Époque. She was Boldini’s muse. And, despite
him being a married man, she was also his lover. The art world went a
bit nutty for the whole story and the painting was later sold for $3
million at auction.
What
I find so intriguing about this story is not so much the discovered
painting and the revelation of a love affair between a great Italian
painter and the beautiful actress in an enchanting era, but more the
story of Mrs. de Florian and why she stayed away from Paris for so long.
What
kept her away even after the war? Was she running away from someone or
something other than the Nazis? For all those decades, her rent on the
elegant apartment in a flourishing city had been faithfully paid all
along, but it was left it to freeze in time. It all sounds like the
perfect mystery.
