Real Estate Bordighera

Marseille:Palais Longchamp and Environs
In 1834 Marseille suffered a drought so severe that it dug a canal to bring in water from the Durance.This 8okm feat of aquatic engineering ends with a heroic splash at the Palais Longchamp, a delightfully overblown nymphaeum and cascade, populated with stonefelines, bulls and a buxom allegory ofthe Durance,and currently undergoing a euro 6 million restoration programme. Behind the palace stretch the public gardens, an observatory (one of four in this city, which has been the home of many famous astronomers) and a little zoo; in the right wing ofthe palace itself, some ofthe creatures from it are embalmed in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, sharing space with their fossilized ancestors.<br />
The left wing ofthe Palais Longchamp houses the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Formed around art that was'conquered'by Napoleon's army, it is home to some second-rate canvases by Italian masters such as Perugino, and some stagey burlesques such as Rubens' violent BoarHunt (in which ladies daintily watch the spurting blood) or Louis Finson's Samson and Delilah (1600), with a nasty Delilah tugging the ear of a very dirty-footed Samson.The mood changes with Michel Serre's scrupulously dire Scenes ofthe Marseille Plague where a large percentage ofthe plague's 40,000 victims are shown dropping likeflies while healthy rich men in suits prance by on horseback, looking politely sympathetic. These same gentlemen never dismounted to assist Marseiile's native artists, either-even an establishment figure such as Baroque sculptor, architect and painter Pierre Puget (1620-94), who has a room devoted to him.Then there's Francoise Duparc (1726-76), a followerof Chardin, who worked in Englandfor most of her life; and the satirist Honore Daumier (1808-97), who wentto prison for his biting caricatures of Louis-Philippe's toadies, here represented by Spitting lmage-sty\e satirical busts modelled after hisdrawings. Here.too, is Van Cogh's roving, bohemian precursor Adolphe Monticelli (1824-86), who sold his paint-encrusted canvases offragmented colour for food and drink in the cafes along La Canebiere. Alsoof note are paintings by Provencal pre-Impressionists, especially i8th-century scenes of Marseiile's port by Joseph Vernetand sun-drenched landscapes by Paul Guigou.<br />
Just across Boulevard Longchamp, the Musee Grobet-Labadiecontains a private collection as interestingfor its eclecticism asfor any individuai painting.table, piate, instrument, tapestry or iron lock.<br />";