As they say, you don’t go to Paris for the weather.”Īpril looked up, eyes zeroing in on Troy’s left cuff link as it caught the light from the overhead chandelier. Which means the temperature can shift sixty degrees in any given twenty-four-hour period. “What’s the problem?” Troy asked, noticing his wife’s pinched forehead.

April was never gone more than a week but, apparently, sometime in the two hours between “ton of crap” and before the issuance of a plane ticket, someone must’ve tipped Peter off that this was not your average find. She was normally an efficient and well-honed traveler, but the thirty-day trip was screwing with her luggage ratios.

While her husband tightened his bow tie and straightened both sleeves, tucking and pulling to make his appearance ever more immaculate, April packed for her redeye to Charles de Gaulle. April’s were high, but for a different reason. According to April’s boss the seven-room apartment held “enough pieces to outfit twelve upmarket bordellos.” Peter’s expectations were low. He’d called in reinforcements from New York because they needed another appraiser, specifically a furniture expert, to bolster their shoddy credentials in that area. April pictured him right then winding through the apartment, tablet in hand, scratching out notes with bony, crooked fingers. As every writer, poet, painter, and, yes, furniture assessor knew, it was the perfect place for escape. There would be work involved, but no matter, she was going to Paris. When her boss sidled up and said the words “apartment,” “ninth arrondissement,” and “a ton of nineteenth-century crap,” April instantly thought: vacation. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage.

And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). Based on the fascinating true story of a treasure-stocked Parisian apartment opened for the first time in seventy years.Īpril Vogt, Sotheby's continental furniture specialist, is speechless when a Paris apartment shuttered for seventy years is discovered in the ninth arrondissement.

A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable