4 December 2019 - PARIS APARTMENT DISCOVERED AFTER MANY DECADES

PARIS APARTMENT

 DISCOVERED AFTER

 MANY DECADES

G'day folks,

Imagine stepping into a place that's been locked up for decades and finding it adorned with period furniture and artifacts - all completely untouched. This is precisely what happened recently in Paris when an auctioneer walked into an apartment that had been abandoned for an unbelievable 70+ years. What he found was a treasure from the past, complete with well-preserved paintings and precious ornaments that tell a long, curious story of history and romance. 

 

The sumptuous apartment belonged to a certain Madame Marthe de Florian, a French socialite, and actress who was born in 1864. She passed away in this very apartment in 1939. Her daughter, Solange Beaugiron (1919-2010), inherited the property but fled to the south of France in fear of Nazi persecution when World War II broke out, never to return. She left this gem behind, and it remained undiscovered until her death just a few years ago.

The untouched objects found in the apartment are all highly representative of early 20th Century Parisian life, making this time capsule all the more special to walk into. They include paintings by the 19th-Century Italian painter Giovanni Boldini, as well as period-correct furniture. Everything was found exactly as it had been left by the apartment's last inhabitant.

Marthe de Florian is known to have had several lovers, who were quite famous, during her lifetime. These include Paul Deschanel, who was the 11th President of France, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, who was the 68th Prime Minister of France, as well as the aforementioned artist, Giovanni Boldini.

It was discovered that Solange Beaugiron, Marthe de Florian's daughter, and the home's last known owner, was an aspiring playwright when she was a teenager. At age 17, she wrote her first manuscript, entitled Miss Mary. There are also individuals who believe that this woman could have been the writer Solange Bellegarde. However, this hasn't yet been proven to be true.

Clancy's comment: Wow. Unbelievable find, eh? The auctioneer would have been gob smacked when he walked into this apartment.

I'm ...