I have come into a real find in my memorable City of Versailles, actually the Château de Versailles of many nice memories ,see my other posts on it, This is in my former Yvelines dept 78 of the Île de France region ,and my belle France. I have found me more pictures in my cd rom vault from a visit with the friends of the castle a while back, that should be in my blog for you and me, Therefore, here is my take on the Galeries Historiques of the Château de Versailles !!! Hope you enjoy the post as I.
In the 19C, Versailles underwent a transformation, becoming a museum according to the wishes of Louis-Philippe, who had become King of the French in 1830. The historical galleries of the Museum of the History of France dedicated “To all the glories of France”—were inaugurated on June 10, 1837, by King Louis-Philippe, A palace and a museum in all !!!
The collections, primarily composed of paintings and sculptures, were enriched until the beginning of the 20C. Louis-Philippe drew upon the holdings of former royal, princely, private, and institutional collections, supplementing them with copies and retrospective works commissioned from contemporary artists. After the fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848 and the Second Republic, Napoleon III took over. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was President of the Republic in 1848, and later Emperor of the French. which completed the museum’s renovations, but the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 brought another halt to its development. Today, Versailles thus presents two distinct yet complementary faces: that of the royal residence of the Ancien Régime and that of the 19C museum. The museum remains, with more than 6,000 paintings and 3,000 sculptures dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries,Since the fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848, the collections have continued to grow, through state commissions and purchases, but also through numerous bequests and donations. Initially devoted to paintings and sculptures, and later also to the refurnishing of the castle, the collections comprised approximately 65,000 works in total at last count, of which 18,861 were online at last count with 8,593 prints, 3,689 paintings and miniatures, 1,577 works of art, 1,403 drawings and pastels, 1,178 pieces of furniture, etc. The Department of Drawings and Engravings alone comprises a total of 90 pastels, approximately 1,400 drawings, and around 28,000 engravings, totaling nearly 30,000 works, while the Department of Medals contains 2,600. This is the principal iconographic source for the history of France.
The evocation of the Crusades appeared very early in the king’s plans for Versailles and initially constituted a tribute from Louis-Philippe to the Legitimist nobility. The chosen location was the garden level of the central pavilion in the North Wing, the Noailles Pavilion, renamed the Pavillon du Roi or King’s Pavilion. The evocation of the Crusades saw its true realization when a gift from Sultan Mahmud II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, of the Rhodes Gate in 1836. It comes from the hospital of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. The Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, or Order of the Hospitallers, was first founded in the mid-11C in the Holy Land to welcome pilgrims. Richly sculpted in the late Gothic style, the double-leaf door is dated 1512 and bears a statuette of Saint John the Baptist, patron saint of the order. The order then developed a parallel military activity tasked with ensuring the safety of pilgrims on the major land and sea pilgrimage routes to the Holy Land. Following successive military setbacks, the order retreated to Acre, then to Cyprus, and finally to Rhodes, which had settled on the island of Rhodes at the beginning of the 14C, after being expelled from the Holy Land in 1291, following the capture of Acre, which brought an end to the Crusades.
The salles des Croisades or Crusades rooms are located on the garden level, initially with one, then five rooms; Spaces dedicated to the history of Louis-Philippe’s reign, The five Crusades rooms unfold the story of the eight major crusades, between the late 11C late 13C, as well as the key episodes in the history of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, from their departure from the Holy Land at the end of the 13C to their settlement on the island of Malta in the 16C. The 125 paintings, set within the wood paneling, are by numerous history and portrait painters of the period based in Paris: Eugène Delacroix, a Romantic painter of the 19C, received many commissions for historical paintings. François Marius Granet, a French Neoclassical painter, was a student of David and a friend of Ingres. He was a curator at the Louvre Museum and later, at the request of Louis-Philippe, curator at the Palace of Versailles, with the aim of creating a museum of French history. You see in pics the Battle of Ascalon, recumbent effigy of Jean Parisot de la Valette, and portrait of the Capture of Jerusalem
The decor commissioned by Louis-Philippe is a complete Gothic-style setting, incorporating antique elements intended to lend historical and authentic weight to his narrative: in the great hall, in addition to the Rhodes Gate, there is a bronze mortar from the same location, as well as the praying statue of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Grand Master of the Order, which before the French revolution stood on a monument dedicated to him in the Temple Church in Paris. Most of these works fall under the category of official art and have served for generations to illustrate countless works of history, literature, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. The decor of the salles des Croisades or Crusades Rooms remains today one of the oldest and most complete surviving French Neo-Gothic ensembles.
Other historical galleries some of which already mentioned in my blog are the The 1830 Room, the Gallery of Battles, the Coronation Room, the African, Crimean and Italian Rooms, the 1792 Room, the Empire Rooms, the Chimay Attic and the Lower and Upper North and South Stone Galleries.
The Château de Versailles on the Salle de Croisades : https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/estate/palace/crusades-rooms
The Château de Versailles on the Galeries Historiques : https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/estate/palace/historic-galleries
The Versailles tourist office on the palace: https://www.versailles-tourisme.com/chateau-de-versailles.html
The city of Versailles on Versailles: https://www.versailles.fr/65/decouvrir-versailles
The Societé des Amis de Versailles (friends of Versailles assoc) : https://www.amisdeversailles.com/
There you go folks, a lovely setting indeed , and gorgeous views with plenty of architecture and history I like. The City will never be forgotten from my mind, sublime, tops and glad to find these gems to share with the world ; Versailles is it. An unique piece of architecture and gorgeous gardens in the sublime Château de Versailles . Again, hope you enjoy this post on the Galeries Historiques of the Château de Versailles !!! as I.
And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!
