Madame de Florian’s Apartment

deFlorianMadame de Florian was a wealthy French socialite in the 1930s. She lived in a large and lavish apartment in the fashionable Opera Garnier district of Paris. In 1942, Madame de Florian moved from Paris, which was under Nazi occupation, to the south of France, which was not under occupation, but she continued to pay the rent on her Paris apartment. Madame de Florian intended to return to her Paris apartment after the war was over, but she never did. She liked life on the French Riviera. Madame de Florian died in 2010. After her death, an auctioneer hired by her heirs entered her Paris apartment. It was the first time that anyone had entered the apartment since 1942. When the auctioneer unlocked the door to the apartment, he was astonished. He found a perfectly preserved time capsule of what life was like for the French aristocracy in the 1920s and 1930s. The apartment was full of treasures. It took weeks to catalog everything. Some items in Madame de Florian’s apartment have already been sold, including a framed portrait of Madame de Florian herself by Giovanni Boldini. The painting sold for over 2 million Euros. Many other valuables in the apartment are still awaiting sale.