Château de Versailles presents this winter a large-scale,  informative and beautiful exhibition with the name: LOUIS XIV The Man & The King.  It will be exhibited until February 7th 2010. Curators are Nicolas Milovanovic and Alexandre Maral.

Louis XIV are welcoming the audience allready when they arrive to Versailles. Photo: Tomas Bagackas

The exhibition, Louis XIV, the man and the king, brings together more than 300 exceptional works coming from collections all over the world and never shown together before. Paintings, sculptures, objets d´art and furniture are exhibited. Some of these masterpieces have never been presented in France before since the days of the old regime, which will enable the visitors to get to know the famous monarch Louis XIV better oth in his personal tastes and through his public image.

The amibition for the exhibition is to reconstruct the most complete portrait of LOUIS XIV, a true lover of art whose taste covered as varieted fields as architecture, music, theatre, ballet, garden design, painting, sculpture, gems, hardstone marquetry, illuminated manuscripts. But he did too inspire a whole world by using elegant dresses and wonderful materials with wellcomposed extravagant and extraordinary details. This do still inspire designers of fashion and haute couture.

Since the times of Louis XIV no exhibition had ever been devoted to Louis XIV in Versailles, in this there has been a surprising vacuum, as all the castle is about Louis XIV and his followers and their history, but never directly focused on the person the man and the king. 

The Beautiful Louis XIV port at the entrance to the castle has recently been restored and brought back to former splendor. Foto: Tomas Bagackas

One side is the public image of Louis XIV. Apart from that, to see the man behind the sovereign we need to study his personal taste. He saw himself as a king who was the protector of the arts and a collector , competing with other soverigns of europe who also were genuine connoisseurs. Louis XIV beneifited from the example of Mazarin, and formed his taste in direct personal contact and relations with artists. Lully in music, Molière in theatre, Le Brun and Mignard in painting, Le Nôtre in the art of gardens, Le Vau and Hardouin-Mansart in architecture, and Bernini in sculptures. Every day Louis XIV came to follow up the progressing made in the works by Le Brun, by taking part in the ballets given in the Court, by orchestrating the construction work of Palace Versailles, by taking part in the design and setting out of the gardens by Le Nôtre. The audience are privilleged that they can combine a visit to this exhibition with a visit to the palace and the gardens of Versailles.

The exhibition is build up about eight different themes. The king´s portrait. Where the Italian artist, Gian Lorenzo Berninis, wonderful marble bust of Louis XIV from 1665 is welcoming the visitors to the exhibition. It was allready in 1684 installed in the Salon de Diane at Versailles. We know in details from Chanteloup, who assisted Bernini during his stay in Paris in 1665 about the execution of the bust, that Bernini began his work with five meetings with the king to make sketsces, followed by twelve posing sessions to produce the bust itself.  The Bernini bust is surrounded by Hyacinthe Rigauds famouse portrait of Louis XIV from 1701, who is the one most universally known. And normaly exposed in Louvre. In this Louis XIV exposes richnes, elegantly dressed in wonderful materials with wellcomposed extravagant and extraordinary details.  

Welcoming sculpture about Louis XIVs splendour. Foto: Tomas Bagackas

The king´s glory. In this part we enjoy the royal manufactories, who were associated with the creation and dissemination of masterpieces to immortalise the glory of Louis XIV. Unfortunately many of their products have disappeared. The Duke of Northumberland has loaned out one of only two still existing monumental cabinets made by Domenico Cucci and Pierre Gole beautiful with inlayd fragments of stones by lapis lazuli, jasper, agate and other precious stones of extraordinary beauty. They expect that the cabinet were placed in the Salon de Mars in 1682. Balanced with two beautiful tables in the same style with inlayed stone in black marble. Contrasting are large hangings and carpets produced by the Gobelins and Savionnerie manufacturers with large monograms completed in 1685.

The theme of numeros public monuments erected during his reign, notably the eastern facade of the Louvre. Is a part of the  twofold figure of the king of peace and the king of war. Notably is the ambassadorial missions received from soverigns in the far corners of the then known world. From the Venetian Republic Louis XIV received an armour made by Giovanni Battista and Francesco da Garbagnate in 1668. In this part of the exhibition is too exposed some famous paintings.

The Kings Splendour. From the Louis XIV exhibition. Foto: Tomas Bagackas

The very Christian king and the king´s physical body. Louis XIV was blessed with a particularly robust constitution, he was nevertheless marked by age and illness and he never required his portrait artists to hide these effects. In this part of the exhibition is exposed the only one known wax portrait made by Antoine Benoist around 1700. : It is possible to see in this portrait traces left by smallpox that the king contracted in his childhood.  In the same part of the exhibition we do also find paintings by Philippe de Champaigne – Louis XIV offering his crown and Sceptre to the Blessed Virgin, circa 1650 and The Elevation of the Cross by Charles Le Brun 1684-85.

The king´s taste. Louis XIV loved art. The King also liked small bronze sculptures, and decorated gems, rare, fine and precious stones set in magnificent surrounds. Louis XIV possessed a greta onogram of them and liked to leave them on display on consoles in front of mirroirs. Among the treasurees are too miniatures. A Box in enamel by Jean Ier Petitot ca. 1680, he was considered the finest enamel painter in Europe

. Surrounded by diamonds. It is called a box, but cannot be opened, it is more like a medaillon.  

Jean-Baptiste Lully, bust at the Louis XIV exhibition. Foto: Tomas Bagackas 2009

Louix XIV, music and dance

is presenting Louis XIV as a passionate lover of music. His encouragement was decisive for the career of Lully, creator of French lyric tragedy. Until 1670 Louis XIV was too an outstanding dancer. The ballet costume presented in thiis room is the only survivor of this period when French choreographic art flourished.  This costume from the 17th century, is still marvellous today thanks to the extreme refinement of its embroidery enanced with fake precious stones. The motifs are comparable to those designed dcirca 1677 by Berain for similar costumes.

Architecture, the art of gardens and the king´s animals

and finaly The myth.

The curators are explaining that they hope to stimulate a wider appreciation of the great artists from the periode of Louix XIV who still are too little known today. Illustrious figures from the century of Louis XIV before are are Molière and Racine.

Molliere at the Louis XIV exhibition. Foto: Tomas Bagackas

But the same can be said for Hardouin-Mansart, Le Nôtre, Girardon, Le Brun, Van der Meulen, Cucci and many others who created immortal masterpieces for the king
. Of course Molière has a benefit in that his theatre pieces stil are being played all around the world, and by that is keeping his name warm, and that in addition Comédie Francaise allways are having some Molière pieces at the repertoire.

The exhibition is

As usual the exhibitons at Versailles are very well composed. That is one of the benefits of a national museum.

In addition it is allways followed up by books, catalogues and following up writings. Which the press unfortunately not are getting exemplaires of, so we dont have the possibility to write about them, as our limited budgets dont permit us to by all that following up stuff. It´s a pitty.