VERSAILLES (A Private Invitation)

Description

It’s the largest chateau in the world, drawing in nearly 10 million visitors a year to its magnificent interiors and gardens. Constructed as the seat of the French court in the seventeenth century by the Sun King, Louis XIV, and embellished by his descendants until the French Revolution, the palace was intended as a ‘showcase of France,’ designed to display to the world all the splendour and opulence that the country could muster. With over 2,300 rooms to its name, however, there are parts of the chateau that most visitors will never see; a new book aims to remedy this, taking readers on a visual tour of the private apartments, fragile artefacts, and hidden corners of the estate.

Versailles: A Private Invitation begins its tour with the staircases of the palace, moving through the jaw-dropping interiors of the King’s and Queen’s Suites, which include the Hall of Mirrors, then sweeps into the chapel and the private apartments of the royal family. The outer spaces of the estate follow, from the Royal Opera to the other grand houses of Versailles, Le Grand Trianon and Le Petit Trianon, both originally built for the mistresses of the kings. We end in the Queen’s Hamlet, a rustic retreat for Marie Antoinette which was constructed to resemble a traditional Normandy village.

The book is filled with overwhelmingly beautiful images; as with a visit to Versailles itself, we’re met with an array of stunning vistas and lavish detail. We move between indoors and outdoors, from walls covered in gilt and carving, to the elegant green plants and formal lawns of the orangery. The images were taken over a period of time, allowing the reader to see the palace in various seasons, and always in perfect light.

The tome was created not simply as a guide, but as a way of allowing the reader to do what is normally impossible – view the rooms which usually remain unseen, linger over details that would otherwise get lost, and experience the chateau without the crowds of tourists who invariably swarm over it. As a way of remembering a visit, or as a first introduction to Versailles, this luxurious book certainly deserves to be enthroned on your coffee table.