As I waited for my friend outside the Petit Palais, sitting on the steps underneath a monumental sculptural group representing, no doubt, some sort of personification of the arts, a guard bustled up to me. This is generally a bad sign, and I prepared to be yelled at for some offense – perhaps step-sitting was not OK? “Attention, miss!” he said sternly (in French, but it’s easier to translate than to remember where to put the accents). “Be careful, because above your head… there is a foot!” Then he laughed, pointing to the foot, belonging to the statue, dangling about 10 feet above my head.
From this, I knew I would like the Petit Palais – if the security guards have time and inclination enough to make cute little jokes, you can be sure that the museum is delightfully obscure enough that their lives aren’t poisoned by tourists asking “is THIS where the Da Vinci code thing was?” And this prediction came true. The Petit Palais, about half special exhibition space and half permanent collection of wacky 19th century, Academic works (like, life-sized terracotta glazed sculpture of a woman with her pet monkey) is populated exclusively with French pensioners from the surrounding posh neighborhood, occasionally accompanied by their well-behaved grandchildren (“yes, it’s a nice monkey, Grandmere”). The building itself is very grand, with lots of architectural sculpture and little gardens. A good place to go if you don’t actually want to see a lot of art – the works are pretty light on the ground – but would enjoy feeling like a lady who lunches for an hour or so. Ps – not even a little bit of English on the signs; however, all you need to know to understand Academic art is that the artist is trying to be the next Michelangelo, and is failing…
