Chocolaterie

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The chocolate and confectionery shop is located on the ground floor of a 19th-century building. The decoration painted in Louis XVI style is dated 9 April 1915 and signed by Gaston Pennetier and M. P. Rousseau. It completes a richly ornamented decoration. The inspiration of the decoration reflects the taste of this early century for antique themes reviewed somewhat by the Empire style or sometimes Louis XVI in the furniture especially. For the painting, this classicism is almost already surpassed while Art Deco is already substituting itself for Art Nouveau. The storefront on the street was formerly adorned with marble cladding. It is currently in varnished wood, adorned with fluting on the display window uprights and some mouldings on the lintel and plinth. Inside, the room is entirely covered with paintwork in ivory-coloured woodwork, with mouldings highlighted in gold. These woodwork panels are arranged over three levels. At the bottom, a kind of continuous buffet, projecting forward, which can serve as a display stand. Above, a series of niches with shelves, delimited by small columns initially closed with two-light glass doors. These small columns continue up to the cornice which their Ionic capitals support. At the third level, the woodwork displays the most elaborate decoration. It is a sequence of painted canvases, stretched between gilded mouldings. Scenes on a blue background depict in the antique manner Bacchic rites, Apollo and his lyre, dances of muses, alternating with musical instruments presented as trophies on backgrounds of flowers and foliage and vases from which spring arabesques. At the four corners of the ceiling, large medallions on a blue background are decorated with a female figure coiffed and draped in the antique manner, bearing a garland of flowers. These medallions are surmounted by tied ribbons and floral and vegetal motifs. Between a moulded band, a large painted canvas forms the main part of the ceiling. It evokes a cloudy sky bordered, in trompe l'oeil, by a wrought ironwork balustrade worked in arabesques and Greek frets, mingled with flowering rose bushes and small birds.