In Rome, a visitor to the exhibition Orient-Express & Co. Itinerary of a modern mython March 16, 2023 at the Villa Medici. FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP
Through several archival documents, the Villa Medici brings the history of this train back to life with Orient-Express & Co. Itinerary of a modern mythan exhibition presented until May 21 at the Académie de France.
What story behind a myth? Object of fantasies and planetary icon, the Orient-Express is at the heart of an exhibition in several dimensions which opens its doors on Friday at the Villa Medici in Rome. Letters, luggage tags, posters, photographs, maps and technical drawings… through some 200 archives of the Compagnie internationale des wagons-lits, the visitor embarks on a journey of nearly a century aboard the legendary luxury train , operated between 1883 and 1977 and linking Paris to Constantinople, now Istanbul.
baptized Orient-Express & Co. Itinerary of a modern myththe exhibition, presented until May 21 at the French Academy in Rome, gives pride of place behind the scenes of the railway company to distinguish historical truth from mythological and cultural narrative. “With the Orient-Express, we have almost a complete history: political, diplomatic, cultural, cinematographic… But the exhibition also shows its social and technical history, which is sometimes forgotten”explains historian Arthur Mettetal, curator of the exhibition.
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A luxury experience
Letters, luggage tags, posters, photographs, maps and technical drawings. FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP
From small hands in the kitchen to cabinetmakers and boilermakers, the route thus highlights the immense logistics chain deployed behind this iconic object, on board and in the European countries crossed. “We had to build these trains, with very detailed technical plans to know how we were going to decorate them, draw the slightest spoon, cup, so that everything was under control, but also have fresh sheets and cooked food”recalls Eva Gravayat, also commissioner.
From then on, the Orient-Express was no longer a simple line but a luxury experience in its own right, at the heart of well-honed communication praising the comfort of its beds and its refined gastronomy, a commercial strategy which contributes to the idealization of the journey. Another route in the spotlight, less famous but just as prestigious: the Rome-Express, put into service at the end of 1883, which connects Paris to Rome. Along the Côte d’Azur then the Ponant and Levant Italian Rivieras, it was especially popular with British tourists in winter.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to elude the fictional odyssey behind this legendary object, starting with the famous detective novel by Agatha Christie, The crime of the Orient Express, published in 1934, and its successive film adaptations. We thus discover a letter signed by travelers stranded in the snow in Turkey in February 1929, the episode which inspired the writer for her camera. The exhibition is enriched by a film by photographer Sarah Moon and a podcast by writer Mathias Enard, taking the visitor on a new docufiction.