If anyone here watches HGTV, a week or so ago they showcased a designer's apartment (very small, maybe 700SF) which had a Plan de Paris, (a massive version), framed, over his sofa. He said he bought it at the Louvre gift shop for 40 bucks.

I WANT THAT!

It is not on their online gift shop.

any ideas? a google brings up a lot of map sites but nothing that specific.

I'll be in NYC next week, I could seek out some big travel/map stores perhaps.

I don't know if it will be of any help, but here is a web site where you can buy a 40" X 52" Paris Metro map like the large ones you see in the Metro for $25.00. There are other posters at this web site. http://www.posters2france.com/generic142.html Hope I have been of some help. I have been thinking of getting one myself. This one is in color.

Maybe paris.org can steer you to a source for these:

http://www.paris.org/Maps

thank you, Randy and Robespierre!

I might end up using a Michelin map, although that isn't quite the look I am going for.

Here are some phone numbers and e-mail addresses that you could use to try to contact the shop directly:
Gift Shop Fax: +33 01 40 20 54 45
Gift Shop e-mail: [email protected]
Gift Shop Customer Service e-mail: [email protected]

If all else fails, maybe call the museum general info (maybe they could connect you a person who could help you directly?) +33 1 40 20 53 17

Good luck!

Regarding the above contact info, I thought maybe you should try to contact the shop directly as not all items in the store are on the on-line shop.

Let us know if you find the map!

I could be wrong, I think I saw this framed in the Ballard Design catalog in the US. More than $40 I'm sure.

thank you Margie and Elaine!

Elaine, check this out on Ballards:

http://www.ballarddesigns.com/bd/pdp...y&cursor=7

kinda neat huh? not sure where I'd put wallpaper though, maybe a powder room on one wall. or one wall of my office. ohhhh, there's an idea. hmmm.

I love Ballards by the way, I get their catalogs.

Margie, I just tried the number and it cut me off, I wonder if they close at 4 pm?

I've already decided to buy a wall clock for each time zone I've visited and run them up my one stairwells - set to each zone's time. I'll be up to nine or ten time zones with this trip to NZ this summer. not sure how I'll designate each one yet - haven't thought that far ahead. (do I arrange photos around it, go for understated lettering of the country/city, or what?)

I got that particular idea from a local (large) law firm's reception wall - they had a clock set to the time of each of their offices around the world with the name of its city in bold block letters. (almost art deco: think Empire State Building lettering). it was SUCH a cool thing to see.

I just happened to think of www.allposters.com

Item #: 414357

check it out! (or just type Paris map in the search box)

If you saw what I think you saw, it is a plan done during, I believe, the reign of Louis the 14th. I have one! My father bought it at the Louvre Department of Chalcography (a little-publicized gem) in the 1960s or 1970s. It comes in, as I recall, 16 panels, each about 18" X 31". So, yes, it is huge. I have one panel framed in my den, which includes Notre Dame, St Germain des Pres, the rest in a box in the basement, awaiting a much larger wall than I have.

At the time you could buy whatever panels you wanted, but most people only wanted the 4 central panels that showed what most of us think of as Paris proper, the rest being outskirts, forests, etc. The problem was that continual printing of the center panels was degrading the plates, so I think they may have stopped letting people buy only a portion. I have no idea whether the prints are still available, but the Dept of Chalcography is the place to check. I don't think this is the same as the gift shop, unless they merged. They have or had all kinds of great stuff. I also have an original Matisse litho and an original Daumier etching or engraving from the same source, which are likely still available.

I doubt that you can get these things by mail, but who knows? Maybe you will just have to go to Paris!

vedette - thank you! going to Paris... worse things have happened.

I only caught a glimpse of it, it appeared to be in one piece (he said he bought it as a poster, it rolled right up into a tube) and I'd estimate it at something like 4x4 square, maybe as much as 5x5 or so. it may not even be perfectly square - I wish I had tivo'd that show.

you sound like you have a real treasure on your hands!

In the lower level shopping arcade of the Louvre, find the gift shop and you will see hanging from the ceiling a canvas map. It is for sale for quite a bit of money. From the original of this map derived all others. This was Michel Turgot's 1739 map.
if you Google the info, you can read how a smaller version was later created. This smaller one is the map you can purchase that comes in four sections in a tube. I own it, but have not yet framed it. Of course, one can also purchase the canvas map hanging in the gift shop.
Be advised that it is an historical map, not great to use in lieu of a good michelin map of paris, but wonderful if you are into cartography.

See the following for high resolution and large scale closeups of the original.

http://usm.maine.edu/maps/exhibit7/turgot.html

Orval is quite right. The Turgot map is what I have, the full-size original. I didn't know they had created a smaller-scale reproduction.

Schumacher used to make a wallcovering featuring an historical map of Paris. I think it may have actually been cork veneer.

You've got some neat decorating ideas! The Louvre was closed today (Tuesday), so maybe that's why you couldn't get through? Here are the hours if you want to give it another shot this week: Open every day (except Tuesday), from 9am to 6.45pm (9.45pm on Wednesdays and Fridays)

You will track this down yet!

Flygirl, did you get through to the Louvre gift shop today?

I love the wallpaper - that would be perfect for a bathroom or a study.

And the poster you featured from allposters.com looks very, very cool.

Let me clarify the location of the hanging map and Chalcography shop in the Louvre. In the lower level, the gift shop is obvious. Not so obvious is the small store adjacent to the gift shop, to the right as one faces the entrance to the gift shop. One can go to the second floor of the gift shop, and either find or inquire as to the location of the Chalcography area. Walk over and into it, and you can then walk down the stairs to the small adjacent shop which houses the canvas map hanging from the ceiling (the original huge one), or purchase the subsequently rendered smaller map, which is the one that the original poster was inquiring about, that is, four panels about 5x5 or so when connected, which does look like one map when together.
I assume that the canvas map is still hanging there, but since I have not been in the Louvre gift shop for two years, of course it may have been replaced, nevertheless, inquire as it is a major map and very famous. I even sought out the original in the Musée Carnavalet, but got no info as to the whereabouts of the map, they were "supposed" to have the original, but no one had a clue there. Later, I found out that the "original", as noted earlier in this thread, was simply the reference to the plates used to print the map. And so it goes.

Okay, here is a site where you can buy the exact thing you have been searching for...here is the explanation followed by the specific page in their web site for purchase:

Paris,1739

In 1734 Michel Etienne Turgot, Prevot des Marchands de Paris, ordered Louis Bretez to begin work on an elaborate plan-view of the city. Five years later the Turgot Plan was published in 20 sheets as engraved by Claude Lucas. Because of its enormous size (over 8 by 10 feet when mounted) and its great rarity, few persons have had the opportunity to see and appreciate this stunning example of urban topographic art.

Nearly a century ago the municipality of Paris had every detail of the entire plan re-engraved, but at two-fifths of its original scale on 4 large sheets.
This facsimile, too, has become extremely scarce. It is this version that we have made available as one of the landmarks of urban cartography. Set of four sheets.

Size: 38½" x 49½" - Black & White, Cover-stock Paper: $80.00

(Scroll down to the seventh map description on the site below...this is the MAP!)

http://www.historicurbanplans.com/p.tpl?id=381#381

WOW! you guys rock!!

Beatchick, not yet - too busy to call today! I'm going to check out Orval's info though, thank you!!

Well, flygirl, it sure looks like you knew where to post that question!