Le Musée de l’École de Nancy - the gardens part 1

Audrey :  We are writing this post almost a year from when we were actually in Nancy.
Lillian :  Wouldn't it be nice if we could spend every Spring-time in France?

Ah well, at least we can look at all our photos.  And we loved the gardens at Le Musée de l’École de Nancy so much that we went back the following day to spend more time admiring all the flowers.

 

Lilac - Lilas in French.  This just doesn't grow in Sydney Australia - it is hard to believe how scented the flowers are - and the variety of colours.




Audrey :  It makes a cute head-dress or ear-muffs too.

Lillian :  Our people do grow Spanish Bluebells in Sydney.  These bluebells (jacinthe des bois) were a very pretty mauve, nearly pink.

Audrey :  It gets a bit confusing with lilac that is white and bluebells that are mauve ...

but weren't the tree peonies amazing!

 

Audrey :  Those flowers were so large - bigger even than our heads!

  

Lillian :  I liked this dark red peony - the French name for a peony is pivoine.

 

Audrey :  You look like a lovely Spanish dancer with that red flower in your hair Lilian.
Lillian :  Thank you, that's very sweet. 


Lillian :  A lot of the plants in the garden of the museum are those that inspired the Art Nouveau artists of l’École de Nancy.



Lovely white flowers - we think they are a wild columbine or Aquilegia (ancolie in French) they were beautifully placed in front of a screen with fabulous red poppies (pavot). 













Audrey :  Art Nouveau artists and craftspeople were very fond of poppies. 
Fern fronds are also a reoccurring motif in Nancy's Art Nouveau.



 Lillian : Our people thought that perhaps this bush with all the white flowers was the ombelliféres that is another favourite motif for artists like Emile Gallé.

Audrey :  Lucky for me that it was not the Ombrelles - because it seems that the flowers those people liked so much was probably giant hogweed a very nasty plant indeed!   (but please let us know if we have that wrong - and the Ombrelles were some other flower)

Lillian :  A Japanese Maple with wonderful purplish leaves.

Lillian :  Here we are under a Magnolia tree.



And our tour-manager helping us to pose for the camera.










 Audrey :  I think we'll have to save our photos of the buildings and things that are in the grounds of the  Musée de l’École de Nancy for our next post - because this one is so full of photos already.

 Lillian : Well, it is hard to resist sharing photos of flowers like this massive & beautiful pink peony flower.

Nancy - Art Nouveau Windows & Crème de Violette

Lillian :  We did, of course, go to the musée de l'Ecole de Nancy and we'll show you photos of that marvellous place in our next post.  In this post, we are going to show you some things we saw on the way to the Museum.

Audrey :  Because there is so much lovely Art Nouveau in Nancy that it doesn't all fit into a museum - it is all over the place!  
Lillian :  Quite - and lovely coloured glass, lead-light windows are quite noticeable examples of Everyday Art Nouveau in Nancy.
Audrey : Most of these windows are 'fan-lights' - small windows over the main door of the building.

Lillian : It is difficult to photograph windows from the outside, in daylight - the colours in the glass are actually much prettier.  For example, this lovely design with 2 blue flowers, had a sweet contrast in the colours of the backgrounds - pistacchio green behind the flowers, pretty mauve round the edge ...

Audrey : There was a row of very similar buildings - all had fan-lights with this design of 3 petaled flowers but they were done in different colours - here are 2 examples.














Audrey : And here are those 3 petaled flowers again - but this time as panels in a door.  The centers of these flowers look just like lollies!  (you can click on the photos to see them larger).

 

3 flowers

 Lillian : The shape of a fan-light window is ideal for a design of 3. 

3 branches of blue things

3 Gorgeous Red Orchids

 

Audrey :  More lovely red flowers - this window was on a corner.

  Lillian : I'm not sure what sort of flowers those are but at the bottom of the windows  -  

I think those are honeysuckle flowers.

Audrey : Another red flower - very elegant.

Lillian : And these pale blue 'clouds' are probably l'ombrelles flowers (see our last post for more info).

Audrey : Someone had their initials done in lead-light glass - I wonder what their name was ... let's see, perhaps Geneviève St-Maman?

Lillian : One more lovely lead-light window - Blossom, Butterflies and a Birdie.

We call these birds Swallows

Audrey : Which is "gulp" quite odd - in French they are l'hirondelle. 

 

Lillian : I think we might have taken the wrong bus to the Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy because we did have to walk quite a long way - and it was rather hot so this street sign seemed quite apt.

Supper - lovely olives, herbed cheese, grapes...

Audrey : Ah, but after the Museum, we did a little shopping and had a nice supper in our hotel room - and - well - um - perhaps you had a little too much to drink that evening Lillian. 

 Lillian :  Oh - the Crème de Violette.  It is such a pretty purple colour, it smells and tastes like pretty violets ...

Even in a plastic cup it is a gorgeous colour

Kir Violette - with some bubbly

 Lillian : I think that I forgot that it is also an alcohol. 

Audrey :  Poor thing - you weren't quite yourself the next morning. 

Nancy - Art Nouveau Buildings - The Banks

Audrey :  There are so many wonderful examples of Art Nouveau architecture in Nancy that is difficult to decide how to divide up all our photographs.






Lillian :  Several buildings, and some of the more famous ones, are banks - so let us show you those in this post. 

This is known as the Banque Renauld - it is on the corner of rue Chanzy & rue St Jean & was built in 1910.  


Emile André designed furniture & a lot of buildings in Nancy.

Audrey : Those are ginkgo leaves on the metal band and this is at the entrance on the corner, under the tower.   Isn't it a wonderful tower? Perfect for a princess.




















Lillian :  The finial is a stylised thistle.  The prickly thistle is one of Nancy's symbols; it is on their coat of arms and the city's motto is 
'Non inultus premor’ Latin for ‘No one touches me with impunity'.  



Audrey :  Ouch! 












 







Audrey : Under the tower there are lots of pretty flowers.  Curling fern fronds and apple blossom. 

Lillian : And here are the apples; the fruit ... there must be some analogy in that for a bank.




Audrey : The stone balconies are nice and solid looking.



















 







Lillian : Whereas the iron-work balconies are really delicate - these are below the tower


and this, with the pine cones, is on the side of the building.










 Audrey : More lovely pine tree motifs on a door grille - and in stone.

 













Audrey :  So much lovely botany on that bank building.  This was a shop, it is now a bank and is just round the corner from Place Stan.

 






 

Lillian :  It was the Magasin Goudchaux, built in 1907 by Eugène Vallin.
In le musée de l'École de Nancy there is a beautiful bureau by Vallin - and the carving on that desk is almost identical to this.  

 That plant is a favourite botanical motif of the École de Nancy - they called it l'ombelle.  It could be Angelica, or the related & quite dangerous Giant Hogweed. 

Audrey : More flowers - this time in glass.

Lillian : The Crédit Lyonnais building (rue Saint Georges) has 230 square metres of gorgeous stained glass ceiling by Jacques Gruber. 

CL for Crédit Lyonnais

 

 

The Central panel is mostly lemon with blues.  

At the end of the center panel

The curving sides of this ceiling are in pretty soft mauve glass with blue clematis.

Audrey : And here is Monsieur Gruber's signature - 1920.  Although the ceiling dominates with its utter gorgeousness - the rest of the bank is also quite attractive.  Here is a peep.

Lillian :  Our last building for this post was not built as a bank - it gets called the Immeuble du Dr Aimé

and was built in 1903 by Georges Biet &  Eugène Vallin.

Audrey : Monsieur Vallin again?  he must have been a very busy gentleman.  But don't you think that the rez de chaussée of this building looks like a face?
Lillian : Or perhaps like a moth's wings?  Like many Art Nouveau buildings, the details are slightly different on each level - the 1st floor has this fabulous ironwork with curling tendrils ...

The next level gets flowers ...

then, right up the top, under the roof, there is an exposed ironwork arch - looking rather like part of a bridge.

Audrey : Let's leave this post with one more photo of that lovely stained glass ceiling.  Perhaps in our next post we'll show you photos of more stained glass & lead light windows that we saw in Nancy.