Untouched for 70 years

The mysterious story of an abandoned Paris apartment. For 70 years this apartment in Paris' 9th arrondissment has been left untouched like Sleeping Beauty.  The rent was always paid on time but no one had set foot inside the door since before the Second World War.  The owner, a young 21 year old French woman had shut the door just before war broke and never returned.

I adore this story. Why had she never returned? And what secrets did the apartment hold? It wasn't until she died this year, at the grand age of 91 that the front door was opened once again. The eclectic turn of the century contents included a prewar Mickey Mouse and a stuffed ostrich. I'm sure you agree the photographs are very romantic.

A glamourous portrait of a young woman in pink evening dress was also discovered in the apartment. The artist being Boldini, the woman in the picture, his muse who just happened to be the grandmother of the young woman who owned the apartment. Her name was  Marthe de Florian, an actress with many romantic admirers including Prime Minister Clemenceau and the artist himself, Boldini. Her love letters were found neatly tied in a ribbon. The painting was sold this month at auction for €2.1 million.