Marché aux Chevaux

I walked by this creperie:

and then doubled back…

what was down that alleyway?

Is that a horse’s head on the building?

Yes indeed-y! But this doesn’t look like the usual horse butcher shop (boucherie chevaline), so what’s the story?

A little research reveals that this is the neighborhood that housed the Paris horse market. In fact, around the corner is a street called Marché aux Chevaux.

The horse market dates back to Louis XIII in 1641. The building below is from 1760 during the time of Louis XV and housed the inspectors.

Look at either side of the central window:

The crane and the rooster are supposed to symbolize patience and vigilance. The embedded slate below gives evidence of the building’s provenance.

Next to this is a more recent building:

Around the block on the other side is a street called rue l’Essai, so named because here is where the dealers let potential buyers try out the horses.

They say that a century ago, there were 80,000 horses in Paris. They carried riders and towed barges, buses,and carts. They were an essentiel part of Parisiens’ lives. And the horse market serviced that need.

The most celebrated work of painter, Rosa Bonheur (the most famous female painter of the 19th century), is Le marché aux chevaux (The Horse Fair). She dressed as a man and made sketches at the market twice a week for a year and a half before completing this 8 by 16 foot masterpiece. You can see the cupola of Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in the distance. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.