Detail of a Florentine Iris on an Italian Pasta Shop in Paris {Perfume Images & Ads}

I spotted this lovely Art Nouveau work of a Florentine iris motif on the cast iron gate painted bluish green of an Italian food store selling fresh pasta in Paris... 

It was dusk and I did not have time to engage the owners - there was still light inside the store, but no one was in sight - on the history of that piece of architectural decor, yet it seemed particularly appropriate to see such a floral symbol on such a store, although it might have been pure happenstance.  

Sometimes, when spotting Art Nouveau decor on a building in Paris, it makes you realize how much more of a taste for ornamentation there was then. You decorated, you "prettyfied" things up. It was a more feminine approach to the habitat and of course, that includes the era's taste for sinuous, supple lines, and come to think of it, the so-called "noodle style". 

So, indeed, an undulating, curvaceous iris even if made of cast iron is doubly apt as a motif to be found on an Italian shop selling pasta. It's one of those temporal coincidences.