Pavilion de Vendôme

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Garden facade of the Pavilion de Vendôme

The Pavillon de Vendôme , also called Pavillon de la Molle and often just called Pavillon Vendôme for short , is the most important of the numerous baroque aristocratic palaces in the French city of Aix-en-Provence . It was built from 1664 on behalf of Louis' de Vendômes and redesigned and expanded by the subsequent owner. Used by an order of nuns in the 19th century , it was owned by the Swiss art collector Henri Dobler from 1906, from whom it came to the city of Aix-en-Provence after his death. Today the building houses a small museum , in the Provence can be seen furniture and portrait paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Pavillon de Vendôme has been classified as a Monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since March 27, 1914 . The associated garden was entered on the French list of monuments in 1953 .

history

In the 17th century, the Duke Louis de Vendôme fell in love with Lucrèce de Forbin-Solliès , who, however, was below his estate. King Louis XIV considered this connection inappropriate and tried to prevent a possible marriage by having the Duke appointed cardinal by Pope Alexander VII . This did not detract from the affection between Louis and Lucrèce, however, and the duke then commissioned the Vendôme castle, the rooms of which he had designed so that his lover Lucrèce could visit him undetected on the piano nobile. The plans for this came from the Parisian architect Antoine Matisse , known as La Rivière . In order to ensure that the servants were able to take care of the couple unobtrusively, Louis had wallpaper doors and hidden corridor labyrinths installed.

But the duke and his lover died just two years after the building was completed. At that time the interior decoration was still unfinished. Louis' still underage son Louis II. Joseph inherited the building, and his guardian sold it to the Avocat général Jean-Baptiste Gautier, seigneur de la Molle . He completed the decoration work and from 1682 had the portal and the entrance area fundamentally changed. The open carriage hall became a closed vestibule with a staircase of honor. In 1730 the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo , who came from Aix-en-Provence, bought the castle and had a second floor added to the palace. Then he set up his workshop in the building. He died there in December 1745.

In the second half of the 18th century the property was owned by Barthélemy-Louis Reboul , who emigrated when the French Revolution broke out . His property was then confiscated and sold. During the restoration , Jean-Joseph-Pierre Guigou , the Bishop of Angoulême , bought the castle and made it available to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus , who ran a girls' school there from 1832 and turned the park into a kitchen garden. In 1906 the Swiss Henri Dobler acquired the palace and had it carefully restored . He also had the garden restored according to plans by Louis Cundier from 1688 and opened it to the public in 1936. The art lover replaced the interior furnishings that had been lost over the years with a collection of valuable old furniture and objets d'art, which he brought together during his life. Dobler bequeathed the building and its interior furnishings to the city of Aix-en-Provence, on condition that it be opened to visitors as a museum. The museum continues to operate to this day. In addition, the Pavillon de Vendôme is often used for official receptions in the city and, since 1990, for art exhibitions .

description

building

One of the two atlases in detail

The palace is a baroque pleasure palace that was built between 1664 and 1667 at the gates of the city. The three-story building is covered with a flat hipped roof. Its floors are separated from one another by surrounding cornices . Originally it only had two floors , which were closed off by a slate mansard roof. This roof shape was the time of construction so unusual that the establishment no indigenous craftsmen were involved, but the client specifically for this purpose Slater from Orléans had to come. Another special feature was the open entrance hall for the driveway of carriages . It was redesigned into a closed vestibule in the 1680s. In addition to today's portal, however, the outlines of the original, wide carriage passage can still be seen. Inside, the simple staircase was replaced by a double staircase of honor with an artistically forged iron grille as a handrail and parapet . The stairwell also received a lavish decor made of stucco and plaster .

The garden facade of the house is based on the Italian Renaissance and shows the three classical column orders Doric , Ionic and Corinthian . Jean-Claude Rambot adorned the facade with two large atlases , which, in the middle, carry the balcony . On the side of the balcony door on the first floor there are two niches flanked by Ionic pilasters , in which statues of gods used to stand. These were later replaced by two large stone vases. The entrance portal is adorned with lush fruit garlands under the balcony .

The interiors are furnished in the Louis-treize and Louis-quatorze styles . On the walls there are works by the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, among others.

garden

The palace is surrounded by a 9,000 square meter, symmetrically designed French garden that is open to the public. The area used to have four corner pavilions , of which only the two northern ones still exist today. A chapel was set up in one of them during the 18th century .

The garden is crossed by two geometrically designed, straight paths, the intersection of which marks the center of the garden. It is particularly emphasized by a round water basin with a fountain. The paths divide the terrain into four lawn-covered areas with narrow flower beds at the edges. The path leading to the portal in the central axis of the building is lined with artificially trimmed box trees , so-called topiaris . On the south side of the garden there is a rosarium in front of the former orangery . On the eastern side - separated from the rest of the garden by an avenue of plane trees - there is another lawn area, which is followed by an arcade overgrown with climbing roses . The palace garden was only expanded to include this area in 1974.

and display information about the image
The Pavillon de Vendôme with garden

literature

  • Thorsten Droste : Provence. Ancient arenas, Romanesque cloisters, cities with history - a journey through France's sunny province. 7th edition. Reiseverlag DuMont, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-3927-9 , p. 244 ( digitized version ).
  • Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Provence . Hachette, Paris 1965, pp. 54-57.
  • Ines Mache, Stefan Brandenburg: Provence. 7th edition. Reise Know-How Verlag Rump, Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-8317-2022-4 , pp. 443-444.
  • Albert Maumené: Les intérieurs du Pavillon de Vendôme. In: Vie à la campagne. No. 308, February 1929, ISSN  1162-5430 , pp. 61-65 ( digitized ).
  • Maurice Pezet: La Provence et l'amour . Fernand Lanore, Paris 1984, pp. 118-121 ( digitized version ).
  • Cony Ziegler: Provence with Camargue. 2nd Edition. Reiseuchverlag Iwanowski, Dormagen 2009, ISBN 978-3-933041-54-8 , pp. 442-443.

Web links

Commons : Pavillon de Vendôme  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b The Pavillon de Vendôme. In: arch INFORM . (Author: Markus Golser), accessed on August 5, 2012.
  2. ↑ Information on the pavilion on the Aix-en-Provence website , accessed on August 6, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b Entry No. PA00081103 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  4. ↑ a b C. Ziegler: Provence with Camargue. 2009, p. 443.
  5. ↑ Other publications name Jean-Baptiste Gautier as the owner of the floor.
  6. ^ M. Constantin: Les paroisses du diocèse d'Aix, leurs souvenirs et leurs monuments . Volume 1. A. Makaire, Aix-en-Provence 1890, p. 240 ( digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Jean-Paul Clébert, Victor Saez: Châteaux de Provence. Édisud, Aix-en-Provence 1989, ISBN 2-85744-442-8 , p. 8.
  8. ↑ a b Information on the garden on the website of the Comité de Parcs et Jardins de France , accessed on 6 August 2012.
  9. ^ A b T. Droste: Provence. 2011, p. 244.
  10. ^ M. Pezet: La Provence et l'amour. 1984, p. 118.
  11. ↑ C. Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Provence. 1965, p. 54.
  12. ↑ Information on the garden on the Aix-en-Provence website , accessed August 6th.

Coordinates: 43 ° 31 ′ 52 "  N , 5 ° 26 ′ 32"  E