Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon is a château and museum located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France. Designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel and built from 1763-1768 for Louis XV it was originally intended for his mistress Madame Pompadour. Later, during the rein of Louis XVI, it became the residence for Queen Consort Marie Antoinette and her children who preferred its private and pastoral setting to the largesse and formality of the royal court.

Marie Antoinette, and her inner circle (including the Princess de Lamballe, and Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac) would come to the Petit Trianon do what?. All protocol regarding admittance to the property was "de par la Reine" (by order of the Queen); however, such exclusivity alienated the court nobility and proved threatening and secretive to her royal subjects, the people of France.

While historians have pointed to Marie Antoinette's excesses as a cause of the French Revolution, there can be no doubt that a legacy of beauty, art and design as exemplified by the Petit Trianon was left behind; including time period furnishings, many object d'arts and gardens.

Background

Madame de Pompadour died 4 years before its completion, and it was subsequently occupied by her successor, Madame du Barry. Upon his accession to the throne in 1774, the 20-year-old Louis XVI gave the château and its surrounding park to his 19-year-old Queen Marie Antoinette for her exclusive use and enjoyment.

Architecturural Style

The Salle à manger: finely-carved boiseries are without gilding, simply painted "Trianon gray" to complement the bleu Turquin chimneypiece

The château of the Petit Trianon is a celebrated example of the transition from the Rococo style of the earlier part of the 18th century, to the more sober and refined, Neoclassical style of the 1760's and onward. The exterior of the château is simple and elegant, architecturally correct, and highly original. Essentially an exercise on a cube, the Petit Trianon attracts interest by virtue of its four facades, each thoughtfully designed according to that part of the estate it would face. The Corinthian order predominates, with two detached and two semi-detached pillars on the side of the formal French garden, and pilasters facing both the courtyard and the area once occupied by Louis XV's greenhouses. Overlooking the former botanical garden of the king, the remaining facade was left bare. The subtle use of steps compensates for the differences in level of the château's inclined location.

A house of intimacy and of pleasure, the building was designed to require as little interaction between guests and servants as possible. To that end, the table in the salles à manger was conceived to be mobile, mechanically lowered and raised through the floorboards so that the servants below could set places sight unseen. The tables were never built, but the delineation for the mechanical apparatus can still be seen from the foundation.

Within the queen's apartment, one discerns Marie Antoinette's incessant need for privacy: the decor of her boudoir displays an inventiveness unique to the age, featuring mirrored panels that, by the simple turning of a crank, can be raised or lowered to obscure the windows. Her bedroom, although simple, is also elegant, provided with furniture from Georges Jacob and Jean Henri Riesener. The wallpaper was painted by Jean-Baptiste Pillement.

Moberly-Jourdain incident

The Moberly-Jourdain incident is alleged to have occurred on 10 August, 1901 in the gardens of the Petit Trianon. In 1911, two English academics, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, pseudonymously published a book entitled An Adventure, in which they claimed to have experienced a time slip during a visit to the Petit Trianon, and seen Marie Antoinette as well as many other people of the same period. The book caused a sensation with the public despite dismissal by critics.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Views and Plans of the Petit Trianon at Versailles Arizzoli-Clementel, Pierre; Ducamp, Emmanuel; Chatelet, Claude-Louis Recueil. France: Hardcover Publisher, Alain De Gourcuff. 1998. ISBN 9782909838304
• Fraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey. New York: Anchor Books, 2001. Reprint edition, 2006. ISBN 075381305X
• Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture, from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. ISBN 0-13-044702-1.

External links

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• Official site
• The Petit Trianon in Quicktime VR. Chateau de Versailles.
• Ancient Places TV: HD Video of The Queen's Hamlet at the Petit Trianon
• Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution
• Marie-Antoinette and the Petit Trianon at Versailles
• MARIE ANTOINETTE’S PETIT TRIANON COMES TO SAN FRANCISCO
• Le Petit-Trianon histoire et description
• Great Buildings: Let Petit Trianon Retrieved August 9, 2008.
• Virtourist.com Retrieved August 9, 2008.

Credits

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