Paris, France — One of the often overlooked places to shop in and around Paris are the museum shops where unique Made in France arts and crafts items abound. Offerings include decorative tableware and jewelry through the ages in the Louvre boutique, like a set of pearl jewelry which draws its inspiration from a portrait of Marie-Antoinette, gastronomic jams made in Paris from the Confiture Parisienne available at the bookstore-boutique at the Musée d’Orsay, while handbags drawing their inspiration from Piet Mondrian are on the agenda at the boutique at the Centre Pompidou.

The Rmn-Grand Palais has just brought out a new collection that is available starting in May in its bookshop – boutiques at the Château of Versailles and the Louvre and in the online boutique at boutiquesdemusees.fr. Maison Baluchon X Rmn-Grand Palais – La Collection Herbier du Roi (The Herbarium of The King Collection). A beautiful range of items is available including pillows, scarves, handbags, decorative drawings, pouch bags and even wall paper decorated with herb, flower and plant designs. Tuberoses, tulips, lilies and carnations, Louis XIV thoroughly enjoyed visiting his fruit, flower and vegetable garden enriched by the botanical expeditions that became increasingly frequent in the 17th century. Each plant was carefully drawn and classified in a register.

The Rmn-Grand Palais has joined forces with the French house of Baluchon who carefully fashions these high quality products for the most part in France but, too, under its control in Belgium, notably for the wall papers and drawings on paper, and England for the table cloths, aprons and dish towels. All of the bags, pillows and scarves were fashioned in France in the house’s workshops in the southern Champagne region. The house has created an exceptional botanical pattern filled with visions of, amongst others, alpine gentian, hawthorn, rapunzel and melon. The Rmn-Grand Palais, Rmn is the French acronym for the Réunion des musées nationaux, distributes its own products and those brought out by others in a network of 34 bookshop-boutiques that it manages in French museums as well as on its on-line boutique.
©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette

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