Between the noisy rue de la République and place St-Didier, on rue Labourer, is the Musée Angladon-Dubrujeaud
(Wed-Sun 1-6pm, till 7pm in Aug; €4.58), displaying the remains of the
private collection of Jacques Doucet. Although the collection, which
once contained works like Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon and Douanier Rousseau's
The Snakecharmer (now in the Musée d'Orsay), has seen better days, it
is still very much worth a look. The visit begins with a series of
rooms furnished and decorated as coherent units, the first Renaissance
and the remainder eighteenth-century (including an orientalist room).
The paintings which remain are alone worth the admission price, and
include Foujita's Portrait of Mme Foujita and a Self-Portrait,
Modigliani's The Pink Blouse, various Picassos and Van Gogh's The
Railroad Cars, the only painting from Van Gogh's stay in Provence to be
on permanent display in the region.
Through the park by the tourist office (where there's an old British red phone box) you come to place des Corps-Saints,
a lively area of cafés and restaurants whose tables fill the square.
Just to the north, rue des Lices runs eastwards, past the École des
Beaux-Arts, to rue des Teinturiers, the city's most atmospheric street.
Its name refers to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century business of
calico printing. The cloth was washed in the Sorgue which
still runs alongside the street, turning the wheels of long-gone mills,
and, although the water is fairly murky and sometimes smelly, this is
still a great street for evening strolls, with a large number of cheap
restaurants. Just west of the tourist office, down rue Violette, you'll find the Collection Lambert
(Tues-Sun 11am-7pm; €2.29), Avignon's first (and rather unfortunate)
attempt at a contemporary art gallery. The collection is disappointing
and the admission price is hardly justified by displays such as an
entire room of Robert Ryman's black canvases.
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