When Versailles was exhibited in Paris By Claire Bonnotte Khelil, scientific collaborator at the Château de Versailles

In the spring of 1932, a major exhibition highlighted the art of Versailles at the Orangerie. This demonstration, however, did not take place in the orangery of the castle, as one might expect, but more surprisingly in that of the Tuileries gardens, in Paris. Its exceptional character invites us to highlight this event, now forgotten, which aroused some passion in its time but also contributed to the artistic renaissance of Versailles.

Built-in the mid-19th century to shelter the orange trees in the Tuileries garden during the winter season, the Tuileries orangery was transformed from the interwar period onwards. In 1921, the famous Water Lilies by Claude Monet were installed there, giving a new vocation to the building, now entirely devoted to artistic creation. Other work carried out in the following years led to the development of four rooms distributed in the western part of the monument. These spaces will be used for the presentation of numerous temporary exhibitions, generally devoted to Impressionist painters, but not only.

The capital’s Orangery

Just after a retrospective dedicated to the sculptor Joseph Bernard, the place hosted from April 9 to May 10, 1932, an exhibition entirely dedicated to Versailles art and the latest acquisitions made by the national museum of the Château de Versailles.

Distributed to the four corners of the capital, in the Paris region, but also in numerous French embassies abroad, the event poster reproduces one of the works in the exhibition: a Rhodian mask of Apollo from the reign of Louis XIV, from the museum's collections, standing out against a plain royal blue background.

Versailles in the spotlight

For one month, the exhibition The Art of Versailles at the Musée de l'Orangerie brings together uniquely a little less than three hundred works, divided into three sections: architectural drawings and ancient views, decorative fragments, and recent acquisitions. Many of them come from the National Museum of the Château de Versailles and therefore took the road to Paris at the beginning of spring 1932.

Among the most noted works is the Apollo on his chariot by Jean-Baptiste Tuby, displayed at the entrance to the exhibition. Just restored by the founder Eugène Rudier, the sculpture benefited from a refurbishment thanks to the second donation from the American John Davison Rockefeller Jr., five years earlier. Its presentation for the first time “out of water” allows visitors to appreciate its beauty up close, revived by its recent restoration.

Several leads from the labyrinth are also on display, as well as woodwork from destroyed apartments, to make Versailles better known and highlight its decorative dimension. For the occasion, works largely unknown to the general public were taken out of storage. Acquisitions from the last ten years, as well as donations, are also highlighted, such as the portrait of Cardinal de Mazarin, then attributed to the painter Philippe de Champaigne, offered by Walter Guy and Marcy Mortland in 1929.

Other national museums, such as the Louvre, will support the event. Thus thirty-seven drawings from the Cabinet of Graphic Arts of the Louvre Museum adorn the high picture rails of these rooms, hung with light brown curtains. The National Archives are also involved, as are the Mobilier National, the National School of Fine Arts, and the Manufacture des Gobelins. The work of the latter is also highlighted by the presentation of the short points of Queens Marie-Thérèse and Marie-Antoinette, just restored by its workshops. The Mazarine Library, for its part, grants the exceptional loan of two famous chests of drawers by André-Charles Boulle from the bedroom of Louis XIV at the Grand Trianon.

This first set of works, particularly emblematic of Versailles art, is supplemented, on the one hand, by loans from territorial museums, such as the cities of Troyes, Puy, or Reims, on the other hand, by those of private collectors. On display, there is a marble bust of Louis XIV belonging to the Duchess of Polignac, sculpted by Antoine Coysevox. Finally, the Stockholm National Museum is exceptionally making available to the organizers a watercolor from the Ticino collection which travels, both on the outward and return journey, via the diplomatic pouch.

With two hundred and eighty issues, the catalog for this event is directed by André Pératé, curator of the museum, helped by his two close collaborators, Gaston Brière and Charles Mauricheau-Beaupré. Within the castle, the estate's architects, Patrice Bonnet and Armand Guéritte, also contribute to the preparation of this event.

At the heart of passions

In many respects, the Orangerie exhibition is part of the Renaissance movement of the Palace of Versailles and its gardens, initiated at the turn of the century, and in which many personalities from the political, literary, and artistic worlds participate. Inaugurated on the afternoon of Saturday, April 9, 1932, it met with honorable success in Paris and attracted more than ten thousand curious people. On Thursday 21, Paul Doumer, then President of the French Republic, honored him with his presence. André Pératé, immediately informed of his trip, was assigned to lead this visit, “without a top hat,” he was told. A week earlier, the former President of the Republic Alexandre Millerand, now president of the Society of Friends of Versailles, also came to the Orangerie Museum for the occasion.

However, from the outset, the exhibition has raised questions and even some reservations. Indeed, who is at the origin of this project and why did you organize it in the capital and not in Versailles? If we rely on the reports of the Artistic Council of National Museums, it seems that André Pératé is the main and sole initiator. During a session held on February 1, 1932, the curator proposed highlighting the enrichments of the National Museum of the Château de Versailles. The concept was immediately adopted by the various members of the commission, then the project developed very quickly to take on a larger dimension. Friend of Maurice Denis, collaborator and then successor of Pierre de Nolhac in 1919 at the head of the National Museum of the Palace of Versailles, André Pératé, therefore, devoted the last year of his career to the preparation of this exhibition, organized in just a few weeks.

In Versailles, it is clear that the choice of location for the exhibition is not unanimous, even arousing incomprehension and anger among certain city councilors. For some, the presentation – or rather the export of Versailles to Paris – represents a form of betrayal, not to say a crime of lèse-majesté... A petition has even been launched in town so that the exhibition can then be presented at the castle, but their request came to nothing due to a lack of resources. In addition, the Fine Arts administration justifies the exceptional nature of its holding in Paris due to the restoration of several works from the museum in the capital and the possibility offered by their presence to encourage, quite the contrary, a new craze for Versailles in return. Let us remember that this is the first exhibition “outside the walls” to have highlighted the masterpieces of Versailles outside their native bosom. At the time, relocation, even temporary, was not entirely self-evident.

The most beautiful thing in Paris...

If these criticisms remain peripheral, the Versailles exhibition in Paris enjoys unanimous praise. In an article from the Beaux-Arts of April 25, Philippe Diolé recognizes: "We could fear that the Orangerie Exhibition, grouping drawings, architectural projects, woodwork, fragments of a whole of which they are often the only vestiges, offered an especially documentary interest and satisfied the mind more than the eyes. This fear was in vain. »From a revenue point of view, it certainly generates ten times less dividends than the Édouard Manet exhibition which succeeds it, and whose attendance far exceeds this one. Even more, it did not make a date, like the legendary 1934 exhibition by Charles Sterling dedicated to the "Painters of Reality", revealing a whole little-known side of French painting of the 17th century, and remained in many memories.

The particular political context in which it was held, marked by the assassination of President Paul Doumer by Paul Gorguloff, a Russian émigré, on May 6, 1932, undoubtedly most certainly disrupted its functioning. Four days later, a congress was held in the hemicycle of the Palace of Versailles, electing Albert Lebrun as the new President of the French Republic. On Thursday, May 12, like many other national museums, the Orangerie exceptionally closed its doors due to a day of national mourning declared during the funeral of Paul Doumer.

Despite this, the exhibition nonetheless remains a success, and today we can only regret the little iconography preserved in connection with this event. If we can see a few black and white photographs in the press, the most striking testimony goes to the artist Léopold Jean-Ange Delbeke, whose very beautiful pastel indeed shows the colorful vision of one of the rooms of the exhibition. In the center of the composition, standing out against a door with the arms of France by Pierre-Josse Perrot from 1727, a Gobelins wool and silk tapestry from the Mobilier national stands the marble sculpture of Iris attaching her wings, executed by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam and completed by Clodion. These works are surrounded by two panels of gray-painted woodwork from the Louis XV period, placed on either side. The museography is sober, bathed in overhead light, highlighting the drawings, the marble busts arranged on white-painted sheaths, and the bound works carefully arranged in a window.

For an entry ticket at the modest price of 1 or 2 francs, the main benefit of the exhibition probably lies in the fact of having made it possible to show the best of Versailles within the capital, but above all in having contributed to convince of the need to continue, if not begin, the refurnishing of the castle. In this area alone, the objective seems to have been achieved, or even perhaps exceeded beyond expectations by the momentum it produces. A few months after the closing of the exhibition, the Mazarine Library deposited the two chests of drawers by André-Charles Boulle. Old decorations from the castle, also presented at the exhibition, returned to Versailles in the following years.

From its opening, the ambition of the exhibition was announced in the press release issued by the management of the national museums, and written by Charles Mauricheau-Beaupré in the style of a manifesto: “An exhibition of this order could not be confine itself to the History Museum, to the little that remains of Versailles in Versailles itself: its design is higher, more vast, it aims through a few examples, with the help of generous loans, to show what the Art of Versailles was [… ] an ideal Versailles, as it should be […]. » And today we can see the turning point made by the museum at the beginning of the 1930s, no longer asserting itself only as a place of history, but also as a stronghold of French art, which seeks and finally finds its place.

Symbolically, the writing of the preface to the catalog is entrusted to Pierre de Nolhac. In the eyes of the academician, “for the first time, Versailles returns to Paris the countless visits it has received”. The image is beautiful, especially if we consider that at the same time, our man is finishing his memoirs, recalling in the introduction, not without a certain malice, his youthful thoughts: “What is most beautiful in Paris is Versailles”…

Versailles in fashion

“Fortunately, this sad time is no more, when we despised Versailles, where we even ignored it. Parisians fell in love with the city of the great King when poets and scholars, such as Henri de Régnier, Robert de Montesquiou, Pierre de Nolhac, and many artists, revealed to them its splendors and charm. The love of Versailles has become a fashion, almost a snobbery, but we still do not know all the secrets of the City of Waters, the details of its palaces. Also, we must applaud the initiative of the Fine Arts administration which has just organized this exhibition of the Art of Versailles […]” (Pierre Mornand, “Toujours Versailles”, The French political and literary review, May 15, 1932, n°13, p. 23).