Art and history intersect at a Paris shop [audio 7min]

Susan Stamberg reports on the little shop on the Left Bank of the River Seine, directly across from the Louvre museum, that has provided supplies to artists for more than 100 years. Cezanne bought oil paints there. Picasso liked their gray pastels. The shop, Sennelier, is a Paris repository of art history and commerce. Gustave Sennelier opened his art supply store in 1887, just a few blocks from the most famous art school in Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the beginning, Sennelier sold paints made by various manufacturers. Then he decided to produce his own paints, traveling all over Europe to buy the best raw materials: pigments from minerals, plants and animal bones. To bind the pigment powders, he used honey from the French Alps, gum arabic, eggs. Gustave's grandson, Dominique Sennelier, now runs the store, and his daughter, a painter named Sophie, works there too.