Versailles by Valérie Bajou (2012)

This beautiful picture book about Versailles was published by the American publisher Abrams in 2012. It is an English version of the French original that was published by Editions de la Martinière in 2011.

The text is written by Valérie Bajou, a curator at Versailles, and translated into English by Antony Shugaar, an experienced translator.

The preface is written by Béatrix Saule, Director of the National Museum of the Palace of Versailles and the Trianon. The book is divided into four chapters:

* Chapter 1 – The History of Versailles

* Chapter 2 – The Château, i.e. the main building

* Chapter 3 – The Gardens and the Park

* Chapter 4 – The Château of Trianon

Chapter 1 is relatively short (merely 14 pages). Here we have mainly text and a few illustrations. The other chapters are much longer. Here we have mainly illustrations, but each chapter begins with a brief introduction. At the end of the book we have an index of artists and photo credits. There is no bibliography (for some suggestions, see the PS below).

FABULOUS PHOTOS

The photos in this book are taken by several professional photographers; all photos are supplied by an agency - RMN - which works with the administration of the Versailles Museum. In this way, all photos can be considered official.

In addition to the fabulous photos which show the outside and the inside of the buildings as well as the park, this book also contains numerous reproductions of the paintings which decorate the rooms and the halls of the museum. The number of illustrations is overwhelming. All illustrations are in colour, and the quality is extremely high.

Most outdoor pictures were taken on a nice summer day with a clear blue sky, because everything looks better when the sun is shining. But there are few exceptions to the rule. The Royal Alley and the Basin of Latona are seen in the winter season when the ground is covered with snow (pp. 342-343); and a black cloud is seen above the Orangerie (pp 366-367) and above the Basin of Saturn (pp. 418-419). These cases offer a good contrast to the many pictures with a clear blue sky.

As you turn the pages of this book, you will be transported to Versailles. You will feel you are visiting the palace, you are studying the furniture, the walls and the ceilings, as you move from room to room. After a while you will realise that you are all alone. There is nobody else around. The pictures in this book were taken on a day when the grand museum was closed to the public.

If you go to Versailles, you are allowed to use a camera, inside as well as outside, but this place is so popular. You cannot take pictures like the ones in this book. You will be surrounded by other visitors almost all the time, almost everywhere you go. You may take a picture of an important monument; but in most cases, other visitors will be visible as well.

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PALACE AND THE PARK

The long chapters will take you on a journey through the palace and the park. Here is some information about what you can see:

Chapter 2 about the main building is divided into six sections:

** The King’s Grand Apartment

** The Hall of Mirrors

** The Queen’s Apartment

** The King’s Interior Apartment

** The Apartment of the Princes

** The Historical Galleries

Chapter 3 about the park is divided into ten sections:

** The Water Parterre

** The Terrace

** The Parterre of Latona

** The Tapis Vert, aka the Green Carpet

** The Basin of Apollo

** The Grand View

** The Orangerie

** The South Groves

** The North Groves

** The Basins of the Seasons

Chapter 4 about the Trianon is divided into seven sections:

** The Grand Trianon

** The Petit Trianon

** The Theatre of the Queen

** The French Pavilion

** The Belvedere

** The Temple of Love

** The Hamlet of the Queen

FAMOUS PAINTINGS

The last section of chapter 2 – the historical galleries – deserves to be singled out. This section covers more than one hundred pages (204-327). More than sixty famous paintings are reproduced here. In order to give you an idea of what the galleries have to offer, I will mention the following ten cases:

# 138, pp. 212-213, Emile Signal (1804-1892): The crossing of the Bosphorus by Godfrey of Bouillon in May 1097. Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100) was one of the leaders of the first crusade.

# 146, page 226, Carlo Maratta (1625-1713): A portrait of André Le Nôtre in 1679. Le Notre (1613-1700) was a French architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV.

# 165, page 257, Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825): Napoleon crossing the Alps. This is one of the most famous paintings of the French general. On the rocks below the man and his horse a few names are written: Bonaparte, the name of the man on the horse; Hannibal, the famous general from antiquity; and Karolus Magnus or Charlemagne, aka Charles the Great. Napoleon wanted to be identified with famous emperors and generals of the past.

# 167, page 260, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy Trioson (1767-1824): A portrait of Jean Baptiste Belley, deputy of Saint Domingue to the French Convention, 1797. Belley (1746-1805) was a native of Senegal and a former slave from Saint Domingue. During the French revolution he became the first black member of the French Convention.

# 179, page 289, Jacques-Louis David: A portrait of Pope Pius VII. Born in 1742, and pope from 1800 until his death in 1823, Pope Pius VII had a difficult relationship with Napoleon.

# 180, page 281, Robert Lefèvre (1755-1830): A portrait of Dominique Vivant Denon. Having accompanied Napoleon in Egypt, Denon (1747-1825) was appointed to be the first director of the new museum called the Louvre.

# 183, page 286-287, Etienne-Barthélémy Garnier (1759-1849): The entry of Napoleon and Marie-Louise into the Tuileries on the day of their wedding, 2 April 1810. Napoleon married Austrian Princess Marie-Louise in order to get an heir and in an attempt to forge an alliance with the Austrian monarchy.

# 194, page 307, Franz-Xaver Winterhalter (1806-1873): A portrait of Queen Victoria in 1842. Born in 1819, Victoria was Queen of England from 1837 until her death in 1901.

# 197, page 311, Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864): A portrait of Emperor Napoleon III in 1862. When France was defeated by Prussia in the war of 1870, Napoleon III lost his empire. He and his wife Eugénie went into exile in England where he died in 1873. Eugénie outlived him by several decades: she died in Spain in 1920.

# 202, pp. 318-319, Jean Leon Gérôme (1824-1904): The reception of the Siamese ambassadors at Fontainebleau by Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, 27 June 1861. This event marked the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Siam (Thailand). It took the painter three years to complete this painting, which was an official commission by the French government.

THE TRANSLATION

As far as I can tell, the English translation is excellent. I noted only one case where something is wrong. Page 330 is the beginning of chapter 3. A sentence on this page says:

“The Grand Canal, which began excavation in 1668, was used during the reign of Louis XIV for naval demonstrations and battles.”

Obviously, the Grand Canal did not begin an excavation. This passage should have been broken up into two sentences, for instance:

“Excavation of the Grand Canal began in 1668. During the reign of Louis XIV it was used for naval demonstrations and battles.”

AN IMPRESSIVE PLACE

Louis XIV wanted the palace and the park to impress and overwhelm any visitor no matter where he or she came from. It worked then and it still does today. In chapter 1, Valérie Bajou explains how, why and when this plan was born:

“It was no accident that the work at Versailles began in 1661, immediately following a lavish party given by Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finance, in honour of the king on August 17 of that year in his château at Vaux-le-Vicomte. To show off such opulence turned out to be a faux pas of the worst sort and resulted in the minister’s fall from grace. Wary of Fouquet’s power and influence, Louis XIV had him thrown into prison, then commandeered the skills of the team that had designed Fouquet’s magnificent château – the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape designer André Le Nôtre, and the painter Charles Le Brun – to carry out his plans for Versailles.”

CONCLUSION

If you have been to Versailles, this book will be a wonderful souvenir for you. If you have never been there, you may still enjoy this book, while you think about what it would be like to visit this place.

If you care about art, architecture and history, Versailles is a good place to visit. With lavish illustrations over more than four hundred pages, this book offers (as stated on the back cover) “a visually spectacular tour of this palace of palaces.”

PS # 1. If you want a book to guide you through Versailles, the palace and the park, I can recommend Visit Versailles by Béatrix Saule (2012), which has an equal amount of text and illustrations. If you want a general history of the place, I can suggest Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth (hardcover 2008, paperback 2010).

PS # 2. If you are going to visit Versailles for the first time, you will need some practical advice. Book your ticket online one or two months before your visit. Show up early. And be prepared to wait in line, even though you already have a ticket. Every visitor must pass a security check and the process can be slow and time-consuming.

Once you are inside, be prepared to share the popular rooms with many other visitors, in particular the Hall of Mirrors. If you ask me, the administration allows too many visitors to enter the main building at the same time.

The park is large enough to accommodate many visitors. It will not feel crowded, even though there are many visitors here as well. The further you move away from the main building, the better is your chance of having the place to yourself. Many visitors do not have the time or the stamina to walk all the way to the Queen’s Hamlet at the far end of the park.

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Valérie Bajou,

Versailles,

Abrams, 2012, 480 pages

 

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