Paris tour Archives - New York City Art Museum Tours

04 Nov Love in the Louvre Zoom Tour of the Metropolitan

Posted at 03:29h in French women, Louvre Museum, Paris, Paris tour, Women's History by jenni

Paris is the city of love, and the Louvre is its centerpiece. Learn about the theme of love in this palace full of masterpieces! The Louvre is full of love stories, because all through the centuries, love has inspired French artists. Discover the love secrets...

21 Dec Zoom Tours in 2020 and 2021

Posted at 00:02h in courtesans, fashion, fashion history, French women, Louvre Museum, nasty women, Paris, Paris tour, royal mistresses, scandals and secrets, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

At the end of this very real annus terribilis, I want to say a few words to you, our loyal readers and attendees. Above all, thanks! Thanks for keeping Shady Ladies Tours alive by reading our blog, attending our Zoom tours, watching our YouTube videos, contributing to our fundraisers—in short, for being a fabulously loyal community. When the pandemic hit the US, in March, it seemed likely to kill the company completely. Who would have thought that 9 months later, as the pandemic continued to rage, we would be putting on our 18th Zoom tour, with audiences regularly over 100, and have gathered over 28,000 views for our videos? It's been a hard year, but ours is a tiny, flourishing corner. And we have a lot more coming after the holidays! Want to find out more?

14 Aug Paris Women’s History in Père Lachaise

Posted at 00:18h in courtesans, French women, Louvre Museum, Metropolitan Museum, nasty women, Paris, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

Bold and sexy women must always have existed everywhere, but in history they seem to be a French specialty. There are a number of places where you can learn about them in Paris. The Louvre and Orsay museums are great, for instance, or the royal...

Gigi, on of the great scandalous French women

19 Feb Scandalous French Women of History

Posted at 22:45h in art history, courtesans, fashion, fashion history, French women, Paris, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

Paris is the great city for the history of racy women. Certainly, other places have contributed—particularly Italy during the Renaissance. But from the time the Renaissance took off in France, scandalous French women have taken most of the world prizes for raciness.

01 Sep Courtesans and mistresses in art

Posted at 01:12h in art history, courtesans, Metropolitan Museum, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

Elegant women are a huge theme in art history, and people mostly assume, as they stroll through art museums, that they are looking at queens, duchesses, and the wives of the wealthy. But often enough, they aren't. They are looking at royal "favorites," mistresses, and courtesans. Courtesans are in fact a particularly large theme in art, probably bigger than queens and duchesses. But people today pass by them without realizing who or what they were, because courtesans, if they exist today, are not important in our culture, so we're unaware of them.

07 Aug Courtesans of Paris tour—in the cemetery!

Posted at 02:13h in courtesans, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

One of my favorite things to do in Paris—really—is explore the cemeteries. The most famous one is Père Lachaise, where a host of celebs are buried, including most famously Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. But it is also a great place for learning about the great courtesans of the Belle Epoque. As an example, Chopin is buried there, the lover of George Sand—a scandalous lady if ever there was one—and so is Colette, in whose novels, such as Gigi and Chéri, courtesans are a major theme. But the great cemetery for Paris courtesans is really Montmartre, which is also a lovely place to take a shady, quiet walk in central Paris—right around the corner from the Moulin Rouge —so we take our Shady Ladies Tours Courtesans of Paris tour there, as you can see in the feature photo.

25 Apr Fun, lesser-known sights on our Paris tour

Posted at 01:50h in art history, courtesans, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History by Professor Andrew Lear

Every Paris tour should include some major sights: even if you've seen them before, you can always see new sides. Plus some wonderful food of course. Our Shady Ladies Paris tour includes both of those, with a "Shady Ladies" tour of the Orsay Museum highlighting the racy sides of the collection (on the model of our well-known tour of the Metropolitan) and some truly excellent meals; also a tasting at the patisserie that is most famous for macarons. But we also include a bunch of sights in our Paris tour that you probably haven't seen—lesser-known sights that even Parisians think it would be cool to see.

Paris tour