Saturday, February 11, 2017

Picasso Museum

Hotel Sale, Picasso Museum

The Picasso Museum is housed in the Hotel Sale in the Marais district.  The mansion was build in the mid 1600s for a salt tax collector.  Sale means salted and hotel is a townhouse.  At one point it was a school in which Balzac studied.  Then in 1964 the City of Paris acquired it and granted it historical monument status.  It is a beautiful building that deserves as much attention as the Picasso collection.  The collection came about when Picasso's heirs decided to make a dation which is a means of paying inheritance taxes through gifting of agreed upon art works.  The Musee has over 5000 pieces in all techniques and from all periods.  There were very, very few of those 5000 on view.  There were some especially rare sculptures and some bars reliefs of felt that I wasn't aware of.  If one only has a few days in Paris, choose another way of seeing Picasso's.  

Le Muerto del Torero

A few pictures at flickr.