Started the late morning with a stroll around some of the shops in the neighbourhood. I wanted to look at cardigans which I might get for an extra layer of warmth.

Saw Eglise Saint Roch.

Since it was open, we went inside.

Very Baroque apse

Walked towards the Louvre.

Saw the Jeanne d’Arc statue.

Walked along Avenue du General Lemonnier which runs between the Jardin Tuileries

and Arc du Carrousel

Looking from the Arc du Carrousel, we could see the obelisk in Place Concorde and the Arc du Triomphe beyond.

We then crossed Pont Royal to the Musée d’Orsay. D’Orsay has a number of spots to get food, none of which take reservations. We were able to get into the restaurant which has a very decorated ceiling.

We went to see the John Singer Sargent exhibition. Sargent is always described as an American. However, his parents moved from Philadelphia to Europe and he was born in Florence, Italy. He lived in Europe his entire life, spoke four languages and died in London in 1925.

His artistic talent was noted early but when his parents thought his art instruction wasn’t good enough, they moved to Paris so he could attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

The exhibition is the first exhibition on Sargent in France and focussed on his early years spent in Paris where he went to school, won prizes and started his professional career mainly as a portrait artist. During this period, he also travelled around Europe and northern Africa.

The exhibition included many of his famous portraits, including Madame X, which was considered scandalous because of the amount of cleavage showing and the subject, a Paris socialite, wore a lot of makeup. (How times change.) But I found his sketches more interesting.

His works painted for himself and not for sale were also interesting. This was done in Venice showing how Sargent and his friend were painting in a gondola.

There was one watercolour.

These are two of his famous portrait paintings. His portrait painting brought him a considerable amount of money and allowed him to travel and paint other subjects like landscape and watercolours for his own pleasure.

He also painted friends and family in a looser, and to me, more lively style.

He painted landscapes for his own pleasure and his friendship with Claude Monet influenced his landscape painting. Below is a painting he did of Monet and Monet’s wife.

We looked at some of the permanent collection. The building has changed since we last visited in 2003. You could not get this close to the clock back then.

Monet’s series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral

There were lots of Monet paintings as well as other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

Scott liked the glass benches.

The museum is quite big so we did not look in every space. The sculpture alley:

In the Jardin Tuileries, a Christmas market was set up.

For dinner we went to Juveniles, a wine bistrot. Started with a foie gras terrine.

Shared an entrecôte with mashed potatoes (which we couldn’t finish)

and a bottle of Burgundy (which we finished).

We were too full for dessert but we were given rice pudding with caramel sauce. The sauce was delicious. They gave Scott a second portion when he said he wanted to lick the bowl.

It was a tiny place with friendly service.