Marlborough Tower

Knock-off

You might not know it if you never make anything from scratch, but the “designing” process, the “deciding the dimensions” and the “how it will be done” part takes time, often even more time than the “just making the stuff” part. That’s why, if you can copy and use a design that’s already been done, you’ll save the better part of the effort.

Here’s how we did just that in copying an existing fire screen for a new series of furniture.

For what it’s worth, you can have a look here at how the first screen was used.

Service Door

From my retro style photo album. Servants posing in front of the service entrance of the Porte de Paris’s living quarters.

Directoire Armchairs

A pair of Directoire armchairs.

The Directoire style, which follows Louis XVI style, is characterized by its greater sobriety and simplicity. All the more so when I make the furniture!

Note how the back legs and the sides of the back are made of a single and curved piece of wood.

Round About Chairs

Fed up with those boring armchairs, always the same with a square back?

Well here is at last a different model, with a round back.

A pair of two new Louis XVI style armchairs « en médaillon »

This type of armchair is still said to be « à la reine » (à la queen) because the back is flat, but is also « en médaillon » (or with a circular back).

Two armchairs with square backs and two with round ones from a series of six new armchairs

Four More Armchairs

Four more armchairs entered the Palace’s collections today. The model is simillar to the one we’ve shown here so far, although the colours are different. Hopefully we’ll have a different model to show you some day soon!

Blue Sky Dream

Two pictures of the Paris Door in Villepreux under a blue sky after today’s rain

Porte De Paris In Villepreux

From the time of Louis XIV until the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles, its Gardens and its Small Park were surounded by a much bigger park or Hunting Grounds. This enormous game reserve, which contained many villages, was surounded by a 40 kilometre wall and was gained access to by 24 doors. 1

Several of these doors were built on the exact same design by the king’s architect Jules Hardouin Mansart. Later in the 18 th century, almost all these doors received additional constructions, in the form of more confortable rooms and even farm buildings, as the guards were no longer satisfied with the cramped single room in which their fathers and their families had lived in.

We started a couple of years ago on the restauration and reconstruction of one of these doors, the Paris Door in Villepreux. 2 The door stands at some 8 kilometres west of the Palace.

This is the door at night as seen from the east, when standing inside the hunting grounds.

As you can see, still more work is needed on one of the farm buildings on the right. On the left stands the new accomodations built for the guard in the 18th century.

Here is the door from outside the Great Park, as you would see it if you were coming from the west and about to enter (or not!) the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

Mind you if you were on foot, still 8 kilometres to go before reaching the Palace itself!

Well, this was more of a teaser than an extensive visit of the buildings, I hope I will be able to show you more soon!

1. See the article : Pour les plaisirs du roi : les métamorphoses de la porte de Trappes (in French) by Laurent Condamy and Julien Lacaze in Versalia, Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles n°15, 2012.

2. We had the idea of rebuilding the Villepreux door after having read the article mentioned above, which tells the story of another door of the Great Park.

More Stairs

The stairs in my home at the entrance of the Petite Venise, near the head of the Grand Canal in Versailles. I am now renovating the house.

Cupboard Love

A lot of ancient conveniences of daily life — such as cupboards — have all but disappeared from the rooms of the palace of Versailles where courtiers had them made to order, removed or refitted almost on a daily basis during the Ancien Régime. Today, I am eager to equip those rooms and appartments with those much needed cupboards and have them rebuilt where the ancient plans show they once stood.

Today’s cupboard will be fitted not far from the stairs shown in yesterday's post, in a very small new project that is going on right now.

More coming soon, hopefully!

A big thank you to J. C. de Frontenac who helped me with installing the new cupboard!

Staircase Spirit

These unostentatious stairs have been made today and delivered for a new small projet on the grounds of the domain. More coming soon?

Screens

The meuble of a room, is the similar fabric shared between all objects that can receive fabric or are made of fabric such as chairs, armchairs, settees, curtains, portières (curtains hung over doors), but also screens or fire screens. Oftentimes, in the grand houses of the upper aristocracy of the Ancien Régime, you had to have a summer meuble and a winter meuble. That is to say, you would have the fabric on all your matching furniture changed generally twice a year according to the season. The fabric covering your bed, chairs, etc. would usually be of lighter colours in summer (white with a flower pattern for example) and a little bit darker and richer in winter (such as a rich red velvet). 

If possessing two entirely different set of furniture was beyond your means or too cumbersome, you could maybe have your chairs reupholstered (which doesn't sound very practical), or, more conveniently, you could own a set of what are called fauteuils à châssis (frame chairs), that is to say armchairs the upholstery of which was conceived to be removable in an instant to be cleaned or changed.

On the new screens I just ordered to complete the furniture of my office, the panels are removable according to the the above mentioned principle, which means I could easily replace them to match the fabric of another set of chairs, and keep the gilded frames. Not that I intend to do so!

A red and gold screen matching the furniture recently delivered for my personal office.

The frame of the same screen before gilding was applied.

Though those screens are relatively short to be usable in rooms with low ceiling such as the entresol room where my curent office is, I sent both of them to the storage room because my office is really too small and full already.

At last, you have to know that during the Ancien Régime and the following regimes abiding by the same etiquette rules, not any idiot could use gilded furniture, certainly not in the King's Palace. You had to belong to the royal family or at least be a very important prince. Please, note that the same principle will apply today, and that gilded furniture will be exclusively reserved to a select few (very few), and in general delivered only to apartments by special permission of His Grace the Duke.

The set of furniture with matching fabric delivered to my office so far.

Causeuse

A causeuse is an armchair which has been stretched sideways to accommodate two persons. It can also resemble a bergère in its construction (with a second loose cushion on top of the first one, lower legs and closed sides), but the model above is only based on a standard armchair. I've ordered this new seat to complete the series of chairs furnishing my office. 

The frame of a newly made causeuse chair, as large as two standard armchairs.

Two armchairs and a causeuse along the walls of the small office I currently occupy in the palace.

The furniture composing the series made for my office so far. The room is so small all those chairs barely fit in there, but this furniture would follow me if I am to move back to a bigger office in the future. This is why I'm not afraid of ordering too much chairs, even if I have to store some of them elsewhere for now...!

Theme And Variations

This is a new variation in colour for the armchair model introduced this year. (See the model's bare frame in details here.) I ordered a series of four armchairs in gold and red fabric for my personal office. (When seated at my desk however, I still prefer to use a modern and very comfortable armchair.) 

My personal office at night in the King's Pavilion of  the Palace of Versailles

A panorama of the different colours in which our model of armchair has been made so far. From left to right : in gold and off-white fabric for the Duchess's Golden Cabinet, in white and orange for the Duchess's Grand Cabinet, and in gold and red for my personal office. At last, a bare frame kept as a template in our workshops.

One More

The last piece of furniture to enter the palace's collection is this Louis XVI style chest of drawers. It has been ordered by a very prestigious occupant to replace an older and damaged one. This new one is made of ebony, a marble top and gilded bronze. Set in a private apartments, it is currently not visible to the public.

Happy Fourth Of July

A year-round display of American Patriotism in one of the Palace's private apartments.

Happy Birthday

That's a year to the day since this blog started, I've showed you many things from here in the palace, much has been done in a year, but a lot has also been done which I didn't share here! That's as many projects still to see on the blog in the future...

If You're Happy Then Have A Laugh

This small Louis XVI style guéridon, or small circular table, is now part of the furniture of the Duchess's Grand Cabinet. It has been ordered specially to stand in front of the newly acquired fire screen, between the two matching armchairs. In fact, this combination of objects (screen and guéridon), serves the same function (shielding you from the fire and offering you a small surface to write on or to display some small item) performed by a single object in the case of the small screen-table displayed in the Golden Cabinet.

Smoke Screen

The frame of a Louis XVI style fire screen.

If you were a nobleman in the 17 th, 18 th, 19 th and up to to the 20 th century at least, and you had a fireplace, you had to have a fire screen. Made of wood and fabric, sometimes intricately decorated and set in front of the hearth, the fire screen was supposed to protect the room and its occupants against projections from the fire or intensive heat. Even when a fire was not burning, the screen, if it was large enough, could offer protection against draughts coming from the chimney shaft. The only thing screens couldn't offer you protection from in Versailles was smoke, for the palace's flues are said to have been particularly inefficient at evacuating it. 

But maybe more importantly, in the houses of the aristocracy during the Ancien Regime, the fire screen was an indispensable element of decor, and its colour and fabric were often to match those of the room's furniture. 

The screen delivered today for the Duchess's Grand Cabinet is in a very elegant Louis XVI style, and in perfect harmony of colour and style with the armchairs. (What are the armchairs in harmony with is another question!) Also note how the curves of the screen subtly echo those of the mirror frame above the fireplace.

Armchairs and matching Fire Screen in front of the fireplace in the Duchess's Grand Cabinet.

Well Kept Secrets

When watching photos of one of the last posts on this blog, I have been disturbed by one empty space along a wall of the Golden Cabinet (Duchess's Apartments). On the picture above, you can see that the panel on the right side of the mirror is cut to lead way to an other room. So, of course, nothing should stand there in the way. But on the opposite side, underneath the two paintings, you definitely had space for something. After some thinking and wondering, I came to the conclusion that a small secrétaire à abattant, (or fall front desk) would be ideal to fill the space. There is another door on the secrétaire's left, so the piece of furniture had to have a small enough depth not to be an obstacle when entering and exiting the room.

The fall front desk I found, in pure Louis XVI style, has got the ideal size. It is made of mahogany wood, has got a marble top and displays some gilded bronze elements, perfectly matching the furniture already in place. It is a welcome detail in the room's decoration but not meant to be the center of attention (this role will be played by a large Riesener commode, now still in our workshops, that will furnish the back wall, where the transparent screen now stands).

If you think you might not be allowed to see the real thing in Versailles (the Golden Cabinet is a private room of the Duchess, accessible by invitation only), here are at last some close up pictures of the secrétaire.

         

   

         

   


         A small Louis XVI Fall Front Desk in the Duchess's Golden Cabinet.