Country Life

Pick of Paris

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I list a few Paris shows here, because I hope to go there before the great Rembrandt exhibition at the Musée Marmottan closes on January 23 and will try to make time to see some commercial galleries as well. To January 10 at the Galerie Vauclair, 24, rue de Beaune on the Rive Gauche, and their stand in the Marché Paul Bert-serpette, Saintouen, Laurence and Denis Vauclair are showing eclectic late-19th-century furniture and furnishing­s selected by the artist Valentine Pozzo di Borgo, as well as her exotically perfumed candles (www.galerie-vauclair.fr).

Also on the Rive Gauche, to January 30, Galerie Mendes, rue de Penthiévre, has ‘Un Siècle en Blanc et Bleu’, 17th-century Portuguese ceramics (above) inspired by the China trade (www.galeriemen­des.com).

like golden raindrops, that give her large, abstract canvases light, warmth and colour. Although relatively new to London, Casadesus has built a formidable reputation for more than 30 years in Paris.

I find Sara Flynn’s porcelain pots (Fig 5) at Erskine, Hall & Coe, Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street, W1 (www. erskinehal­lcoe.com), to January 12, quite simply beautiful. As Emma Crichton-miller says in her catalogue essay: ‘They delight the eye with their precise asymmetrie­s, the swoops and turns, the nips and tucks, the peaks and bulges, rims and ridges.’ Each is unique and, in Flynn’s own words, ‘with every pot I learn something. I can never see myself getting bored with these possibilit­ies’. There are alsoa few of her new bronze sculptures on offer.

Sculpture? Furniture? Sometimes one, sometimes both, the witty and whimsical work of Claude (b.1924) and the late François Lalanne (1927–2008), generally known as Les Lalannes, has many important collectors around the world, especially since the 2009 Saint Laurent sale in Paris. Until January 26, Ben Brown, Brook’s Mews, W1 (www.benbrownfi­nearts. com), is showing about 30 pieces, including new work by Claude (Fig 7). Earlier pieces blend his bold animal sculptures with her more delicate flora and fauna to provide their own fantasy creatures, which often also serve as functional storage spaces.

Robilant + Voena is the leading dealer in the Caravaggio-esque paintings by the European artists who flocked to Rome in about 1600 and fuelled an artistic revolution instigated by Michelange­lo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571– 1610). Naturally, it has taken the opportunit­y of the National Gallery show to mount its own ‘In Pursuit of Caravaggio’ at its Dover Street, W1, premises to January 27 (www.robilantvo­ena.com).

Caravaggio was in Rome from 1592 to 1606 and, although he took no pupils and ran no workshop, his powerful, anti-classical style ensured that his influence was widespread. The show offers 12 works by, so to say, leading followers, including three by Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582– 1622): St John the Baptist (Fig 6), Saint Jerome and Head of the Baptist. All three present biblical subjects in a new manner for the time, with an astonishin­g realism and extreme violence. Giovanni Baglione’s (1566–1643) Judith with the head of Holofernes is a further perfect example of this aspect of Caravaggio’s legacy.

Also included in the exhibition is the recently rediscover­ed Allegory of Music by Antiveduto Grammatica (about 1569–1626), one of his very few signed works.

Out of Town: Christmas shows of gallery artists continue at the Jerram, Sherborne, Dorset (www. jerramgall­ery), to December 21 and the Fosse, Stow-on-the-wold, Gloucester­shire (www.fossegalle­ry. com), to December 31.

Mahler’s Second comes first

 ??  ?? Fig 5: Porcelain pots by Sara Flynn. With Erskine, Hall & Coe Baptist. Fig 7 left:
Fig 5: Porcelain pots by Sara Flynn. With Erskine, Hall & Coe Baptist. Fig 7 left:
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