Saint-Germain-des-Prés Fine Arts & Painting PrivateTour

Why a Saint-Germain-des-Prés Fine Arts and  Painting Guided Tour?

Because historically French Fine Arts institutions are concentrated in the north of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Because a lot af famous 19th-century French painters were linked with Saint-Germain-des-Prés: Delacroix, Ingres, Manet, Monet, Bazille, Flandrin etc. and even Picasso a very French Spanish man.

And finally because if 19th-century painting is ubiquitous in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, links of the district with arts is tremendously older. 

Before the Academies

• Middle age corporations of painters and sculptors

The Academies and the Salons Before the French Revolution

• The Royal Academy of Painting & Sculpture
• “Salons de peintures” during the Royal Academy of Painting & Sculpture period
• 18th-century « Salons de la Jeunesse » (Youth Salon)

The Academies and the Salons after the French Revolution

• The Academie des Beaux-Arts in Institut de France
• “L’Ecole Supérieur des Beaux-Arts” (Superior School of Fine Arts)

The Museums

• The French Revolution and the “Musée des Monuments Français”
• Musée du Louvre
• The first museums of Luxembourg
• The “Musée des Artistes Vivants” (predecesor of Orsay)
• Musée d’Orsay

Shelter of Province and Foreign Painters

Discover why Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the shelter of many “province” and foreign painters who wanted to work in Paris. Among them a lot of low-countries protestant artists as Ferdinand Elle (or Van Heelen) a painter who is said to be one of the masters of Nicolas Poussin; as some famous French 17th-century painters as Lubin Beaugin, Pierre Patel, Antoine Le Nain (Oldest Le Nain brothers).

Fine Arts Related Places of Interest

• Simon Chardin birthplace and place where he first acceded to notoriety
• The place of birth of Edouard Manet
• Jacques Louis David residence
• The color shop of Ingres and Delacroix
•  Workshops of Delacroix, David, Gros, Monet, Bazille, Ingre, etc.

Paris, Saint-Germain-des-Prés Guided Tour, the Furstenberg square: Here were standing the Abbaye stables and later on the workshops of Delacroix and Monet who painted there a word famous work: The Luncheon on the Grass.

Works of Arts and Master Pieces of the Tour

In Saint-Germain-des-Prés abbey Church

• Amazing fresco works of Flandrin (Ingre favorite pupille) in St Germain Church
• 11th-century romanesque capitales
• 13th-century Virgin Mary sculpture
• 17th oil paintings by François Verdier  and Laurent de la Hire, (one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture)
• 18th century oil paintings by Sébastien Leclerc and Nicolas Bertin

Other Works of Arts 

• Two master pieces of Delacroix in Saint-Sulpice Church
• 18th-century sculpture by Pigalle
• Picasso and Saint-Germain (he painted Guernica there) a sculpture of his mistress Dora Maar is visible in a square

Tour Content: Saint-Germain-des-Prés Classics

Even if this tour focus on Fine Arts and French Painting, we will meet on our tour route some classics of the Saint-Germain tours that we will also comment on:

Deux Magots, Le Flore, Brasserie Lipp.
Procope, Cour du Commerce Saint-André & French Revolution.
Literature, theater, jazz, Etc.

The bell tower of Saint-Germain-des-Prés Church which was built around the year 1000, the sculpture in the foreground is from Picasso.