Passport to Paris Exhibit

I enjoyed a treat with my hubby Sunday night visiting the Denver Art Museum's Passport to Paris Exhibit.  We snuck in on the last night before the exhibit closed, and I am certainly glad we did.  Included with our tickets were three French-themed exhibits, Court to Café, Drawing Room and Nature as Muse.  Court to Café was the main exhibit, showing "three centuries of French Masterworks," including beautiful examples of gilding, metal inlay, and marquetry in pieces of period furniture scattered throughout.  Of course the impressionist works were my favorite, especially the Monet section in Nature as Muse.  Opening work of the Court to Café exhibit:

Here are a couple more of my favorite Monet pieces from that exhibit.  Water Lilies, 1904, made me tear up a bit, remembering a visit I took with my grandmother Mimi before she died.  Mimi wanted to take her five girls and their families to Normandy, France, where her family was from. While there, we of course visited Paris, Mont-Saint-Michel, and Giverny, among other places.  I remember walking over the lily pond bridge behind Monet's house in Giverny.  Mimi in a wheelchair, with her purple raincoat and matching umbrella.   Then visiting the gift shop and buying a pack of postcards featuring his paintings.  

Alfred Sisley, Seine at Bougival, 1873.  His signature caught my eye on this painting because I recognized it.  We have a painting (reproduction) hanging in our dining room of an Alfred Sisley painting similar to this one, and I could never figure out the artist.  The subject and signature gave it away.  I mused to my husband throughout the remainder of the exhibit how fabulous it would be to have a long-lost work of Alfred Sisley unbeknownst in our house.  I did dig through a Nashville consignment shop, serving castoffs from the likes of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, to discover it about six years ago.  Alas, the original hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

And lastly, one of my husband's favorites: Louis Anquetin, Avenue de Clichy (Street–Five O'clock in the Evening), 1887