In the art of Paris

5-MIN READ5-MIN

Published: 12:00am, 31 May 2009

The piece of entrecote on the plate in front of me is seeping juices the colour of cranberry juice. On the tablecloth, which is a sheet of butcher's paper, there is a basket of freshly baked bread, a glass of Cheval Blanc from Saint Emilion and a cone of steaming pommes frites. All this has been delivered by a waiter dressed in black trousers and waistcoat paired with a white shirt and apron, although his most notable accessory is a Gallic scowl that is almost more delicious than the steak.

This is Brasserie Lipp (www.brasserie-lipp.com) on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, a glorious cliches of a Parisian restaurant, where Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Jacqueline Kennedy, Johnny Depp and a galaxy of other stars have supped since it opened in 1880. But Lipp is not the main course, it's just a way station on a tour of the French capital by art.

I have been given a table on the ground floor at the front, which is like an unrepentant sinner being seated next to God, but then it's early. Later in the evening a solo tourist will be banished to Lipp's purgatory, which, unlike Dante's circles of hell, involves going up, to the second floor, where the accents tend towards the American Midwest. For now I can occupy the spot that was once used by French presidents No 19 and 20 (Georges Pompidou and Valery Giscard d'Estaing) for their famous reconciliation dinner and look through the frosted windows at the cafes Flore and Les Deux Magots, the brasseries where Jean-Paul Sartre romanced Simone de Beauvoir.

That was in the 1950s but my mind is further back in time, in the 15th century, with the painters Filippo and Filippino Lippi. This summer Paris has an exceptional number of first-class exhibitions. Apart from the city's usual attractions, visitors can spend two or three days viewing some of the most significant work in the history of art, everything can be done on foot and the walks between galleries take in places such as Brasserie Lipp, the luxury-drenched Avenue Montaigne and Rue de Lille, home to some of Europe's most exquisite antique shops.

And thus to Lippi pere et fils. Their work is being exhibited until August 2 at the Musee du Luxembourg (www.museeduluxembourg.fr), in the Orangerie of the Palais du Luxembourg, built for Marie de Medici in 1615. That the Lippis, who began their careers as monks, have their retrospective here makes sense. They were from Prato, just north of Florence and part of modern-day Italy. Filippino was born following his father's tryst with a nun - Filippo's reputation as a party animal almost exceeds his status as a painter - and execution would have followed but for the intervention of Cosimo de Medici, founder of the Medici dynasty and Marie's great uncle.

Paris' first public museum of painting opened in the Palais in 1750 and the building has two permanent galleries that display a rotating selection of 24 paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. The Palais was used as a prison during the French Revolution, as a residence by emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and wartime German leader Herman Goering and today opens out on to Jardin du Luxembourg, where Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir liked to paint. After seeing how Lippi et fils discovered the techniques of perspective, taught Botticelli to paint and fornicated their way through the creation of Christian-themed masterpieces such as The Annunciation, find a vacant chair in the garden, sit and breathe in Paris.

To get to Lipp from the Lippis, walk directly up Rue Bonaparte, or take the long way round via Boulevard Raspail to Rue de Varenne and the Musee Rodin, where two exhibitions that run until August feature portraiture by Auguste Rodin and young British artist Gillian Wearing. Until the middle of next month visitors can also enjoy Erotic Rodin, an exhibition that includes sketches of nudes that reveal the source of the sensual lines in iconic Rodin sculptures such as The Kiss.