Letters, luggage tags, posters, photographs, maps and technical drawings: through some 200 archives of the International Sleeping Car Company, visitors embark on a journey of almost a century aboard the legendary luxury train, operated between 1883 and 1977 and linking Paris to Constantinople, now Istanbul.
Called "ORIENT-EXPRESS & Cie. Itinerary of a modern myth", the exhibition, presented until May 21 at the Academy of France 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 total history: political, diplomatic, cultural, cinematographic... But the exhibition also shows its social and technical history, which is sometimes forgotten," historian Arthur Mettetal, curator of the exhibition, told AFP.
Preview of the exhibition "Orient-Express & Co. Itinerary of a modern myth", on March 16, 2023 at the Villa Medici, the Academy of France in Rome. © Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP
From the little hands in the kitchen to cabinetmakers and boilermakers, the route highlights the immense logistics chain deployed behind this iconic train, on board it and in the countries of Europe crossed.
"We had to build these trains, with very detailed technical plans to know how we were going to decorate them, draw every spoon, cup, so that everything is controlled, but also have fresh sheets and cooked food," recalls Eva Gravayat, also curator.
From then on, the Orient-Express is no longer a simple line but a luxury experience in its own right, at the heart of a well-honed communication praising the comfort of its beds and its refined gastronomy, a commercial strategy that contributes to the idealization of travel.
Another itinerary 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 and the Italian Riviera of Ponant and Levant, it was especially popular with British tourists in winter.
However, it is impossible to avoid the fictional odyssey born of this legendary train, Agatha Christie's famous detective novel, "The Crime of the Orient Express", published in 1934, and its successive film adaptations.
We also discover a letter signed by travelers stranded in the snow in Turkey in February 1929, the episode that inspired the writer for her closed doors.
Preview of the exhibition "Orient-Express & Co. Itinerary of a modern myth", on March 16, 2023 at the Villa Medici, the Academy of France in Rome. © Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP
The exhibition is enriched by a film by photographer Sarah Moon and a podcast by writer Mathias Enard, taking visitors on a new docu-fiction.
© 2023 AFP