Grande fresque de la gare de Lyon, Mural in Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, France
The Grande Fresque de la Gare de Lyon is a 100-meter-long mural in the upper section of the station hall, displaying twenty destinations along the Paris-Menton railway line. It consists of oil paintings on canvas mounted to the walls.
The mural was commissioned by the PLM railway company for the station's 1900 renovation, with Jean-Baptiste Olive painting six Mediterranean cities. Panels for Lyon, Avignon, Tarascon and Nîmes followed in the 1920s and 1930, plus two Venice canvases. The last expansion came in 1980-1981, when Jean-Paul Letellier painted eleven Paris-Lyon panels for the Genovesio workshops.
City names are painted at regular intervals above the panels, under the ceiling, so the sequence reads as a route from Paris to Menton. The 1900 and 1920s panels show travellers in the dress of wealthy early-20th-century society, while the 1980 Paris–Lyon panels include cars and people in modern clothes beside a horse-drawn hay cart.
The mural is located in the ticketing hall between Halls 1 and 2 and is easy to spot while walking through the passenger corridor. The best view is had when you take time to look upward.
The work bears the name fresco despite not being created with true fresco technique, but rather with oil paintings on canvas. This detail is often overlooked by visitors who might expect traditional fresco methods.
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