Murder and Mystery with a Soupçon of Art History: L’Art du Crime

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Murder and Mystery with a Soupçon of Art History: L’Art du Crime
She is a brilliant art historian and appraiser, who talks to dead artists. He is a hard-boiled cop with a hair-trigger temper that lands him in the OCBC (Office Central de Lutte Contre le Trafic des Biens Culturels – The Central Office for the Fight Against Illegal Trafficking of Cultural Property) as punishment for his insubordination on the general crime squad of the Parisian police force. Unfortunately, he can’t tell a Monet from a Matisse, an enormous deficit for those who investigate art thefts and forgeries.   Captain Verlay and Madame Chassagne on the set of L’Art du Crime, Season 7 in Versailles. Courtesy of MHz Choice/ Doncomm PR The head of the OCBC, Commandant Alexandre Pardo, brings in the Louvre’s Madame Florence Chassagne, PhD, to help the crusty, self-assured detective Captain Antoine Verlay solve a murder attached to an alleged heist of a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting. Fireworks ensue, spicing up this madcap mélange of comedy, mystery, suspense, intrigue, romance, and art history. In France, you can binge L’Art du Crime’s eight seasons on France 2. In the US and Canada, you can binge The Art of Crime’s seven seasons through the streaming service MHz Choice. Everyone can watch the first full season of The Art of Crime’s first three cases for free on Plex.  Edgar Degas, The Dance School, 1878-80, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (public domain)
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Lead photo credit : Actors Eléonore Bernheim (Madame Florence Chassagne) and Nicolas Gob (Captain Antoine Verlay) in L’Art du Crime (France 2, in 2017). Courtesy of MHz Choice/ Doncomm PR

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Beth S. Gersh-Nešić, Ph.D. is an art historian and the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts education service that offers tours and lectures in the New York tristate area. She specializes in the study of Cubism and has published on the art criticism of Apollinaire’s close friend, poet/art critic/journalist André Salmon. She teaches art history at Mercy College in Westchester, New York. She published a book with French poet/literary critic Jean-Luc Pouliquen called "Transatlantic Conversation: About Poetry and Art." Her most recent book is a translation and annotation of "Pablo Picasso, André Salmon and 'Young French Painting,'" with an introduction by Jacqueline Gojard.

Comments

  • Blair Jackson
    2025-06-19 11:32:20
    Blair Jackson
    Thanks for the cool article! We've been big fans of the show for many years (watching on TV5 Monde here is the SF Bay Area). My only complaint is that there aren't MORE episodes ...and that a so-called "season" might be just two or three episodes! I'd also like to put in a good word for the MHz network, which has a zillion of the "Muertes a..." crime thrillers (each set in a different part of France), and, the WWII drama "Un Village Francais"--still the the best French series (something like 72 episodes!) I've ever seen...That addictive show got us through the first months of the pandemic!

    REPLY

    • Beth Gersh-Nesic
      2025-06-22 11:59:40
      Beth Gersh-Nesic
      Hi Blair, Thank you so much for putting in the good word for MHz Choice. We followed "Murder in . . . " for a while. We haven't watched "Un Vilage Française" - Many thanks for the recommendation.

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