Wallace Collection, part 2

Journey 23 part 2, Around the Wallace Collection.

I have decided to start this second part of my Wallace collection journey with a brief account of the amazing French Palace of Versailles, this I hope will create a useful back story for the Wallace Collection as it is to a large extent dominated by artworks from seventeenth century France.

A vast area of smelly reclaimed marsh land at Seine-et-Oise just outside Paris was the unprepossessing site Louis XIV chose for his palace; at the start of his grand project all that occupied the site father’s royal hunting lodge built in 1624 and swarms of mosquitos. Versailles was built in four phases between 16661 and 1710 Louis absolute intention was for the grandeur, splendour, majesty and radiance of the his palace to reflect his own glory, splendour and majesty and thereby dominate and outshine all other European courts, he even styled himself ‘the Sun King’. Politically astute Louise knew that it was not just outside the French borders he had to dominate it was also his own fractious aristocracy, and so to keep them where he could see them and be better able to control them he demanded his entire court move with him to Versailles and live there with him in his grand palace.

However in 1682 when the court did move to Versailles, the palace was in some parts still a building site and the aristocracy where far from happy at being forced to give up the sumptuousness of Parisian society and culture to come and live in a swamp fly infested palace where the clouds of brick-dust could make breathing difficult. What was worse still was finding out that such was the lavish size of the French court that for all it’s grandeur the palace was still to small for the all who wanted to be close to the King and many noble couples were billeted in the servants quarters who had to vacate to the stables or local villages.

Yet close to the King was were the power was, so they came and Versailles became a crowded house of unwashed bodies powdered, perfumed and bewigged – even the aristocracy rarely bathed! In this jostling strutting politically intriguing decadent environment Louis kept his court from building dangerous allegiances by creating an intricate all-consuming code of etiquette for life at his court. This kept his nobles busy trying to progress through the layers of etiquette to be admitted into his presence and perhaps his favour – this was where they might gain gifts of wealth and power. As the seeds of revolution spread across Europe so Louis need for control grew and so did the importance of the code of etiquette which placed the King and Queens life under intense scrutiny. Courtiers were admitted into the royal presence depending on their importance and with such a large court it was vital that Louis favoured his court with his presence as much as possible so from the ritual of his getting up and breakfasting to the ritual of his going to bed at night Louis XIV was watched and as befitting The Sun King everything he touched was therefore required to be beautiful and to inspire awe. This is back story of many of the pieces which originated in Paris on display as part of the Wallace collection.

Back to the collection itself.

The tour guide then tells us the story of the beautiful and ornate tall commode – a chest of drawers – originally from Versailles, and so important he tells us that if you go on a tour in Versailles they point out a gap where it would have stood and the little description card that says the piece now resides in London. It is a spectacularly ornate item, made of oak with complex scrolling gilt mounts, the top now grey marble would originally have been pink marble but this one was damaged probably in the French Revolution. It used to stand right at the heart of Versailles in Louis XIV’s bedroom and there is a story that it was responsible for the dying King’s final distress. When Louis was dying he was eventually removed from his own bed to a small makeshift camp bed by in front of the fire and by the side of commode, this was done so the sceptre of death would not cling to the royal bed which would thus be fit for the new King. So just when he was at his sickest, losing consciousness and rambling he taken from his bed and on the camp bed on the floor; he knew he was dying and was very afraid as he had lived a dissolute life, so fearing for the demise of his soul he must have been in terror when in his final moments he is reported to have said seeing the gates of hell. The tour guide pointed out the curling reaching tendrils of the ornate gilt mounts on the commode that when Louis was lying next to them would have flared and danced in the fire’s reflection. This is apparently one of the most famous pieces of furniture in the world.

Next the guide stopped to point out the grand and intricate two hundred and sixty year old clock that still keeps perfect time. It does not just tell the time however, GMT is shown by the blue hands on it’s top most face (I wonder if GMT had been invented at this moment, was it called GMT – I think the answer to the first is yes and the second is no – but that’s a guess – I can feel a Google moment coming on). Solar time is told by the silver hands, and from a brass plate showing a map of the then known world and from this you can tell the time of anywhere in the northern hemisphere. There are only three clocks like this in the world – the guide was a little miffed to report that one of the other two can even detect leap years something this one does not and has to be stopped and manually reset.

Back in the dining room to the Canaletto’s, this time I learn that the painter was a good business man and he produced hundreds and hundreds of these Venice scenes and sold them relatively cheaply supplying the young aristocrats on the Grand Tour in need of grand souvenirs of their time abroad. This is why Canaletto’s are so common in the grand houses of Britain.

We move on through the Billiard Room into the Yellow room with its silk wall hangings in the style of the seventeenth century court of Louis XIV, in this room I see beautiful and extravagant pieces decorated in rich Boulle marquetry. This technique was employed by the highest paid Parisian master craftsmen at the Gobelins workshops were the King employed the artisans specifically to make the furniture, tapestries and decorations for his palace. Marquetry is the art of putting a decorative veneer over the base surface of furniture or small objects, Boulle marquetry uses materials of great richness and expense such as brass objects which were veneered with tortoiseshell and terracotta that was gilded with a mixture of mercury and gold (because of the mercury, although they were very well paid the craftsmen didn’t live long to spend thier money).

To be continued in Art Traveller Journey, part 3

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