Paris tours show visitors some of the city’s best art – in private galleries they might feel intimidated about entering
- Many people might hesitate to enter a private art gallery, but in Paris they show some outstanding contemporary art. A tour company takes visitors inside them
- While the city is known for its art museums, its contemporary art scene is buzzing, with Brexit causing galleries to move from London and Art Basel coming
Through the gallery window, just off the swanky Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, a tree is growing out of the ceiling.
On closer inspection, it turns out the branches, leaves and flowers are made from bronze and rock crystal, and it is one of dozens of beautiful and bizarre chandeliers in the Régis Mathieu Gallery.
Few tourists would think to visit – often too intimidated to enter the fancy showrooms of private galleries.
But with Paris having emerged from a half-century slumber to once again become a major global art hub, there is renewed focus on the treasures to be seen in the city’s galleries.
“It’s really not the case that they only want people who are buying,” says Zara Sajid, co-founder of Art Heart Tours, which aims to bring more tourists into this cloistered world.