From his very first visit, in 1728, Louis XV had a great affection for the Château de Compiègne, one of the most ancient of the royal residences, and much favoured by royalty for the good hunting in its forests. Together with Versailles and Fontainebleau, Compiègne had the honour of holding sessions of the King’s Council, with a room devoted to these meetings. In 1736, Louis XV ordered work to start on transforming and modernising the château. Thus, in 1751, the king’s architect, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, formulated a general reconstruction project, which aimed to integrate the disparate buildings and give a more refined form to the royal apartments.
It was into this residence on the 14th May 1770, with construction work all around, that the king welcomed the young archduchess Marie-Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress Maria-Teresa, whose marriage to his grandson the Dauphin and future Louis XVI, had been arranged. Like his predecessor, Louis XVI loved to stay at Compiègne, and he continued the “grand project” with great determination. It was during his reign that the château took on its final shape with the completion of the Queen’s Wing, the reconstruction of the King’s Apartment, the harmonisation of the Court of Honour, the addition of outbuildings, terracing of the gardens… In spite of the constant building work the royal couple regularly came to Compiègne, for brief or extended stays, which the architect managed to make comfortable by adapting the choice of royal apartments according to the stages of construction. In 1782 the queen decided to occupy the wing which had recently been completed on the terrace.
The interior décor also had to be adapted to the many transformations of the site and to the tastes of successive occupants. Whereas Louis XVI preserved the simple style appropriate to Compiègne, he did, however, moderate his predecessor’s hunting themes. It was recent French victories during the American War of Independence which no doubt inspired him to choose decoration based on military glory, most in evidence in the Guard Room, the location of the current exhibition. As befits a queen, Marie-Antoinette’s apartment is equally magnificent, but with a different style, devoted to art.
This exhibition, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Compiègne, reveals the splendour of these interiors, which were worked on right up until 1792, on the eve of the new Republic. It is these objects commissioned for Louis XVI, sold and dispersed in France and abroad after the revolution, which the château de Compiègne has brought together in this exhibition. As an introduction, the architectural plans of Gabriel and his successor Le Dreux de La Châtre reveal the quality of the project, an expression of pure classicism, as well as its gradual realisation. Then, in the Guards Room and the double Antechamber, several of the royal apartments are recreated, notably the King’s Bedchamber and his inner office. The visit continues with the Queen’s Games Room and the Council Chamber where items from the original rooms, lent to the exhibition, are displayed.
This exhibition brings together more than seventy works and objets d’art: royal portraits, furniture, decorative bronzes, precious fabrics, paintings and sculptures from the original rooms, architectural sketches and plans, all from the château collections or from the Louvre, Versailles or Fontainebleau, and the National Furniture Museum.
