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After several years of lock and a meticulous restoration, the Petit Palais (Small Palace) museum reopened in December, 2005. It shelters the collections of the Fine art of the City of Paris. Almost all of the 1300 exposed pieces are exceptional (Greek and Roman art, Flemish paitings, impressionists, icons, furniture of 18th century, etc.). The alliance of one of the most beautiful Parisian buildings of Beaux Arts style and of a rich collection of New Art allows to feel, better than anywhere else, the flavor of 1900 Paris.
But we can also visit this major museum with a gay eye.
It is mainly Palace of Woman but the boys are not forgotten.
Follow our glance …

Sapho 1900

Already, on the facade, women make farandoles, fall in festoons or show victorious. Frescoes of ceilings, paintings and sculptures only confirme the first feeling : this palace glorifies Woman.
All along the visit, it is an anthology of firm bosoms and proudly shown breasts. Soon, we begin to wonder if number of these ladies are not lesbian. And the top of the visit confirms this point of view …

La Vague and La Méditerranée, two paintings by Maillol (around 1890), Les Baigneuses de la plage du Pouldu by Maurice Denis (1899), Les Jeunes filles à la mouette by Bonnard (1917), Soir Antique by Alphonse Osbert (1908) or the famous Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt by Clairin (1876) show a sensual and already seeking for independance woman.

Psyché sous l’empire du mystère by Héléna Bertaux (before 1897) or Paris et ses affluents by Ferrary show a distant woman, cold but deciding her destiny.
All these pieces of art show that women fight for freedom as soon as "Belle Epoque" and that Paris is saphism capital. Walter Benjamin said that "lesbian is modern hero".
Marietta by Corot (1843) show a free woman of other days, and some painting from 18th Century, sexual freedom before french revolution (days where lesbians where a must).

But, a painting, symbolic between all, decorates the cymas of this museum. It is titled Le Sommeil (the sleep). Gustave Courbet painted in 1866 this intimate scene between two embraced women, in bed, for Khalil-Bey, a collector.
It can be considered one of every first (if not the first one) determinedly lesbian paintings. It came out of the cabinet of his owner for the first time in 1878 and provoked scandal.
The Goncourt brothers writed in their newspaper how much they hate this painting : "here are two muddy, dirty bodies, tied up in the most unsightly and the most slanderous movement of the sensual delight of woman in a bed ; nothing of the color, the light, the life of the skin, nothing of the loving grace of her members, a silly garbage." Just aside, an another painting by Courbet, apparently more innocent : Les demoiselles des bords de Seine.
It was shown in 1857, and made scandal because its preparatory drawing let seem one of both women sleeping on the shoulder of the other one. Courbet finally abandonned this idea for a more classic composition but he was too late, the scandal was already on the way. For Le Sommeil or Les demoiselles des bords de Seine, what shocked especially contemporaries of Courbet was that it did not try to hide its comment behind an allegorical veil but showed with realism two women of their time. "Two Dikes" like said a late 19th Century critic with all the usual homophobia of these days.

And what about boys ?

Well boys keep some room in this huge woman space.
In windows dedicated to antique Greek art, at first floor, look for this brave satyr holding his big member in full hand… He stayed in this position since 6th Century before Christ!
Baroque Saint Sebastien, attributed to Pierre Puget and another sissi dancer, animate the galleries at the same level.

In the curious painting Les 43 portraits de l’atelier Gleyre, one of the pupils of this professor (who taught Monet, Renoir, Sisley or Whistler) didn't hesitate to pose naked.

The true Boys Corner is upstairs, between impressionists and art during 3rd french republique. From Premières Funérailles by Barrias, you will for sure remember Adam's mouth and muscles.
Le Bon Samaritain (1880), touching painting by Aimé-Nicolas Morot, will surrely make think about friendship against all.

Gym-queens can sweat in front of tenths of bodies in the huge Bataille de Cannes (1863) by François-Nicolas Chiffart.

Most romantic (and imaginative) visitors will invent a beautiful gay romance between two young herdsmen sleeping side by side in La sieste pendant la saison des foins by Courbet 1868.

This small selection is open. Up to you to find the vase or the painting with a muscled hunk or a young guy who wake you up !
Have a nice visit !

 

Musée du Petit-Palais

(Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris)
Avenue du Président Wilson
75008 Paris.
M° Champs-Elysées Clémenceau.
Free admission to permanent collections.
Open from 10am to 6pm. Closed on Mondays and Holidays.
Open until 8pm on Tuesday during temporary exhibitions.