The weather is a bit rainy today and it is convenient to leave the Promenade des Anglais for a while and enter this iconic hotel. There are many gorgeous buildings on the promenade – and not only there – in Nice. This has a pink dome at the corner above the entrance. It was reputedly modelled on the breast of a woman Gustave Eiffel, the designer, was in love with. This reminds me of the twin domes of Carlton hotel in nearby Cannes. They were reputedly modelled on the breasts of La Belle Otero, the famous courtesan. 🙂 In Slovakia we have a building built 1911-1913, the same time as Negresco, with not much different domes – but explanation for them goes that they evoke gun bullets… No wonder as it used to be the War Ministry in the past and now it is the building of the Faculty of Philosophy of Comenius University in Bratislava, my alma mater.
Hotel name Le Negresco remembers us to the man who had it built in 1912 – Henri Negresco, who came from Romania as Alexandru Negrescu. However, Madame Jeanne Augier´s family bought the hotel in 1957 and her life was connected with this hotel for more than 60 years afterwards – until her very last breath which she breathed in this hotel in the night of 7 to 8 January 2019 – three months ago.
Mme Jeanne Augier collected works of art and thanks to this her passion her hotel virtually became an artistic museum. However, now not only these objects can be admired here. As a serendipity, there are also sophisticated clothes, gowns and accessories as hats, shoes and handbags exhibited here at the moment. All of them not only belonged to the legendary hotel owner, she even wore them right here. Just according to the waistline of some of them I suppose that Mme wore them a longer time ago. But they look as new and as up to date as in the time they were created, I think that their classical elegance bravely withstood the passage of time and they are as wearable today as they were in the past. My compliments to the creators of this eternal beauty!
