Armourer's Bedroom

The Armourer's Bedroom is a tiny windowless room inside the Duchess's apartments where her personal armourer may rest or spend the night. The tiny proportions of this room make it even impossible for you to stand, unless you are quite small. But you're in a bedroom to lie and rest anyway, aren't you? You'll notice the simple hexagonal terracotta tile floor, characteristic of the service areas of the palace.

The fireplace seems to be original, probably made for the room in the beginning of the 18th century.

A Glimpse of Riesener ?

This is a glimpse at the latest arrival in the furniture collection of the palace. This modest Louis XVI style mahogany chest of drawers, with marble top and gilded bronzes, might be an early work by the famous 18th century cabinet maker J.H. Riesener, who worked for the court of France and Queen Marie Antoinette herself. In any case, it is highly probable this chest of drawers was originally made for the palace of Versailles. Well, it's back home!

A Louis XVI style chest of drawers, Duchess's Apartments, South-East Pavilion of Secretaries of State.

Rafraîchissoir (Wine Cooler Side Table)

Saturday seems to become the day when I visit the antique shops, and for two weeks in a row now I didn't come back empty handed! The rafraîchissoir I came back with yesterday is a perfect example of this type of wine cooler side table I wanted to have in our collections for a long time. It is a very singular type of furniture, and many rafraîchissoirs made from the end of the 18th century to the early 20th century present the same general arrangement.

As you can see from the photographs, a rafraîchissoir is a small table with, generally, two circular openings on top in which are placed two metal containers where bottles are kept in ice.

 Our rafraîchissoir has a marble top. As you can see below, the tin containers can be removed to pour ice in them more easily, or, quite conveniently, to empty the ice and water when their job is done!

Usually, a rafraîchissoir has a small drawer, on the side or front. On our model, the drawer is large enough to contain a couple of glasses. Once again, quite convenient! I'm still looking for a bottle opener from the same period to keep in here too.

 If you read the post about the side table, you have probably noticed the similarities in stile between the side table and the rafraîchissoir. It is possible that the two were made by the same cabinet maker.

One last thing. Today, such a piece of furniture as the rafraîchissoir has of course become a curiosity, as wine bottles are kept chilled more conveniently, if needed, by more modern apparatuses. Therefore, it is not uncommon for rafraîchissoirs to be used as decoration tables and for the holes or containers to receive plants. A word of warning though : Xavier Dièvre, MOF, cabinet maker in Versailles, warns on its website that the humidity produced by the plants in such a case is not good for the piece of furniture. You've been warned if you decide to use your rafraîchissoir in such a way!

As you can see, ours, which is very precious, is kept in a pristine condition by being used only in accordance with its original function, or, better still, not used at all. This, ladies and gentlemen, is money well spent.

Cheers!

A Louis XVI style Wine Cooler Side Table from the palace's collections. The glasses and bottles are from Lego ® .

Servant's Quarters

What a stark contrast between the decor of this room and the one of the salon I showed you again in the last article! If the salon does not present an example of the richest decors you can find anywhere in the palace (those can be found in the king's apartments of course, or in the Great Gallery), still you can start to develop an idea of the hierarchy that exists in the decoration of the different rooms of Versailles. The present room, judging by its characteristically simple stone mantelpiece (above which you wouldn't usually find such a large mirror, but this little room hasn't got any window, and the mirror is not new), its plain white walls and its floor made of the hexagonal terracotta tiles so widespread in Versailles, is clearly secondary and used by servants. (And still, a nice room for servants! There's worst! Believe me folks!)

A simple stone mantelpiece and terracotta floor in the South Wing's King's Pavilion. 

Desserte

A newly acquired Louis XVI style desserte or side table, in the Duchess's apartments.

After the French Revolution, almost all of Versailles' furniture had been plundered and auctioned off. This is why, as well as recreating now vanished places in the grounds or in the palace, I am always glad when we can welcome a valuable piece of furniture to refurbish, even modestly, a newly restored room. Once again, Madame la Duchesse is lucky, as this newly acquired desserte (a type of side table generally belonging to a dining room) will be on display in her apartments. The room or precise place it will be shown in may of course vary, but for now, you can admire this desserte in the great cabinet, or office of Madame la Duchesse (if you are invited in, this goes without saying).

Fireplace, portraits and the newly acquired side table in the Duchess's office.

Have you ever wondered how the type of drawers we see here on each side of the desserte, with a curved front, do open? Well, there are in fact several solutions. The first one is quite simple, and consist in having (somewhat dishonestly!) fake drawers! Would you have thought of that? The second solution, is to have real drawers with a slide mechanism underneath them (as you can't have normal slides because of the triangular shape of the drawers). The third solution, the most elegant and unexpected in my opinion, is to have swing-out drawers which pivot on a hinge outside your table. So, which solution has been used in making this desserte do you think? This will remain for now, very frustratingly, a well guarded secret!

Bernard Molitor?

While removing a protective layer which had been added underneath the two encoignures, we found two estampilles, or maker's marks, which read : "B * MOLITOR". One of our readers, expert in antique furniture, had signalled us early on that those two encoignures could be an early work by the French cabinet maker Bernard Molitor. If those marks are genuine, it seems she could have been right!

A look at Molitor's mark underneath the encoignures.

A better look at the masterpieces themselves.

Just Got Lucky

I've been looking around through the collections of the antiques shops in Versailles today, when in a small shop I spotted a pair of very fine encoignures from the 18th century. I was looking for this type of furniture recently, because I thought I could use two of them to refurnish the small Prints Cabinet which we are bringing step by step to its former glory. The pair seemed fine and of a quality worthy of Versailles, plus the marble and faux marble used in the shelves was reminiscent of the one from the fireplace of the cabinet. I was very surprised though when, inspecting the back of the pieces of furniture, as you should always do, I spotted written on them the very mark ("CV") of the palace of Versailles! This encoignures, more than worthy of featuring in the collections of the palace were in fact artefacts which had been part of these collections during the Ancient Regime! I'm not entirely certain yet, but it is even highly probable that these two encoignures were indeed made for this very room in the first place. The name of their maker (no doubt very gifted) is unfortunately unknown for now. I got twice lucky to find the pair too, because quite frequently, elements of furniture that work in pair get separated over time and it is not always possible to reunite such fine examples of the craftsmanship of the Age of Enlightenment.

This is the second pair of high quality encoignures you can now see (in pictures at least!) in the rooms of the palace. You'll be as lucky as me if you can manage to see the originals!

Encoignures in the Prints Cabinet on the First Floor of the South-East Pavilion of the Secretaries of State.