24 THE ART NEWSPAPER SECTION 2 Number 284, November 2016
mother, as well as a portrait
of Marie Antoinette and her
gilded harp.
Gerard Vaughan, the direc-
tor of the NGA, has great
expectations of the exhibition.
“The name recognition for
Versailles was higher than we
have ever had before,” he says,
referring to pre-exhibition
market research. He attrib-
utes the palace’s fame to the
number of Australians who visit Paris.
Vaughan says the French govern-
ment first proposed the show, in part
to mark the centenary of the First
World War. The tens of thousands of
Australian soldiers who died fighting
on the Western Front in France during
the war gives this unprecedentedFrench-Australian cultural exchange
added significance.
Javier Pes- Versailles: Treasures from the Palace,
NGA, Canberra, 9 December-17 April 2017
Exhibitions International
‘The greatest deployment of pomp’:
a courtier’s experience of the Sun
King’s wildly extravagant parties
Just over 300 years after the death of Louis XIV, a show at Versailles looks back at the festivities he started
TAPESTRY: © CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES; PHOTO: CHRISTIAN JEAN/JEAN SCHORMANShttp://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk
FOR APPOINTMENTS IN SALISBURY OR LONDON
John Axford: +44 (0) 1722 424506 [email protected]
To include: An exceptionally rare Chinese Imperial doucai guan.
Mark and period of Yongzheng, 10.4cm high.WOOLLEY &WALLISSALISBURY SALEROOMSASIAN ART
Tuesday 15th November 2016
ROCOCO
Versailles. The kings of France did not
take courtly entertainment lightly. In
his memoirs, Louis XIV, who excelled in
dancing, riding and fencing, instructed
his son, the dauphin, on the point of
“honest pleasures”. Not only could
they soothe a troubled soul and inspire
humanity, he wrote, they were also an
instrument of good government and
political power à la française.
The Château de Versailles, where
the Sun King established his glittering
court in 1682 (he reigned between 1643
and his death in 1715), is holding the
first major exhibition on those honest
pleasures at the end of this month. The
show, titled Parties and Entertainment
at Court, invites visitors to “imagine
themselves as courtiers and experience
the full variety of entertainments on
offer”, says Beatrix Saule, the palace’s
chief curator.
“Non-stop” partying
Curators have cast their nets far and
wide to bring together 400 works for
the show, which spans 150 years from
Louis XIV—the monarch who “institu-
tionalised entertainment”, Saule says—
to the end of the ancien régime with
the onset of the revolution in 1789. Star
loans include an 18th-century club from
the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St
Andrews, Scotland, and large, rarely
shown tapestries depicting Louis XV
at the hunt—a reminder of Versailles’
roots as a royal hunting lodge. (The tap-
estries now belong to the Palazzo Pitti
in Florence.)
Courtiers followed a packed timeta-
ble of “ordinary” entertainments, Saule
says. There were festivities for mar-
riages, baptisms, the visits of foreign
sovereigns, and celebrations of music
and lawn sports. The hunt rode out at
least three days a week, while evenings
were split between the theatre and
receptions in the king’s apartments. “It
was non-stop,” Saule says.
Except for a month in the summer,
when most nobles would return to their
provinces, Versailles was ready to enter-
tain at all times and in most places. Part
of the exhibition will use 3D reconstruc-
tions to reveal sites that have since been
lost, including the pop-up theatre of
Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of
Louis XV, on the Ambassadors’ Staircase,
which was destroyed in 1752.
The same society that prized comic
theatre spared no expense in party
planning. Thousands of masked revel-
lers filled the Hall of Mirrors in a search
for the king at the Yew Tree Ball (where
he first met Madame de Pompadour)
in 1745. The show will present new
research on the event’s lavish costumes
(each of which cost the modern-day
equivalent of €6,000), choreography and
music. Most ruinous of all were the fire-
works, which are the subject of the final
section of the show. “Light has always
been the characteristic of Versailles,”
Saule says. “It was the greatest deploy-
ment of pomp.”
The show is sponsored chiefly by the
construction conglomerate Saint-Gobain.
Hannah McGivern- Parties and Entertainment at Court, Château
de Versailles, 29 November-26 March 2017
Jean Le Pautre’s
print from 1676
depicts the
Marble Court of
Versailles during
a performance
of Jean-Baptiste
Lully’s opera
Alceste. The
event took place
on 4 July 1674,
as part of a
festival held
by Louis XIV to
celebrate victory
in a recent
battle over
Spanish forces in
Franche-ComtéThe glories of Versailles, from giant Gobelin tapestries to
Marie Antoinette’s gilded harp, make their way to Australia
Canberra. Versailles at the height of
its power and glory is at the centre of
an exhibition opening at the National
Gallery of Australia (NGA) next month.
The show of around 130 loans from the
Château de Versailles focuses on the
palace’s history from 1682 (when it oi-
cially became the seat of French polit-
ical power) until revolution brought
the ancien régime (but not the palace
at Versailles) tumbling down.
Among the loans are paintings, fur-
niture, tapestries and, most notably, a
1.5-tonne fountain statue of the Roman
goddess Latona and her children,
which is being transported from Ver-
sailles to the capital of Australia. Other
items include Jean Varin’s marble
bust of Louis XIV (1665-66) and a reli-
quary that belonged to the Sun King’sA tapestry depicting Louis XIV with the
papal ambassadorTEHRANCultural coup takes
Modern Arab art
from UAE to Iran
Q Modern art by Arab artists comes to
the Tehran Museum of Contemporary
Art (TMoCA) this month. The Sea
Suspended: Arab Modernism from
the Barjeel Collection (8 November-23
December) will include around 40 works
made between the 1940s and the 1990s
from across the Arab world. The works
are drawn from the collection of the
Barjeel Art Foundation, which is based
in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Given the political tensions in the
region, the exhibition marks a signiicant
moment of cultural diplomacy between
Tehran and Sharjah. “Art is important in
that it allows experiences to be shared,
even across the boundaries of language
or culture,” said the director of TMoCA,
Majid Mollanorouzi, in a statement.
“This is of even more importance when
we work together with organisations
from the region.” A.D.
NEW YORKUS outing for ancien
régime metalworker’s
opulent craft
Q If, as the art historian Aby Warburg
claimed, God is in the details, then
divinity should be found in Pierre
Gouthière: Virtuoso Gilder at the
French Court, which opens at the Frick
Collection this month (16 November-17
February 2017). Gouthière supplied
much of the decorative art for Louis
XVI’s court: chased bronze and gilt
handles, mounts and bases, porcelain
and ivory vases, clocks, doorknobs, table
legs and mantelpieces. At the height
of the fashion for “arabesque” craft, he
was inundated with orders for his work.
This exhibition of 21 masterpieces will
make his name known to a wider public.
A comprehensive book (to be reviewed
in a future issue of The Art Newspaper)
accompanies the show. D.L.