Enfilade

From Versailles:

The Princes of Rambouillet: Family Portraits
Château de Versailles, 15 September 2017 — 22 January 2018

On the occasion of the reopening of the Château de Rambouillet, the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and the Palace of Versailles present the The Princes of Rambouillet: Family Portraits, on view from 15 September 2017 to 22 January 2018. Ten or so portraits from the collections of the Palace of Versailles will cast a spotlight on the Bourbon-Toulouse-Penthièvre family, who owned Rambouillet for almost all of the 18th century. The château was embellished and the estate largely extended over two generations, first by the Count of Toulouse, the legitimated son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan who bought the marquisate of Rambouillet from Fleuriau d’Armenonville in 1706, and then by his son, the Duke of Penthièvre, who was obliged to part with the estate in 1783 upon command by Louis XVI.

The exhibition will feature famous works such as the Portrait of the Count of Toulouse as a Sleeping Putto by Mignard and the famous Cup of Hot Chocolate by Charpentier, alongside lesser-known but just as evocative portraits like that of the Princess of Lamballe by Ducreux or the Duke of Valois in the Cradle by Lépicié, the latter being displayed for the first time since its recent purchase by the Palace of Versailles.

Raphaël Masson, Les Princes de Rambouillet: Portraits de Famille (Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 2017), 36 pages, ISBN : 9782757705742, 6€.