Choisy Castle

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Choisy Castle. View from the east (garden side). Washed drawing by Gabriel Perelle , undated
Choisy Castle at the time of the "Grande Mademoiselle", view with garden from the Seine. Engraving by Pérelle
Overall plan of the palace and gardens. Engraving by Pierre-Jean Mariette , in: L'architecture françoise, around 1727

The Choisy Castle (French: Château de Choisy ) in Choisy-le-Roi , Département Val-de-Marne ( Region Île-de-France ), was a castle complex about ten kilometers southeast of Paris on the banks of the Seine that was in place a small previous building was built between 1680 and 1686 for Anne Marie Louise, Duchess of Montpensier (1627–1693), known as the Grande Mademoiselle , a cousin of Louis XIV .

After several changes of ownership in 1739 Louis XV. The location, not far from the hunting grounds of the Sénart forest, attracted the attention of the castle in the classicist Baroque style typical of the French Grand Siècle . From 1740 onwards, the king had the main building enlarged, extended by several outbuildings and adapted the interior to the rococo style that was now predominant . In 1746 he made Choisy available to his art-loving mistress Madame de Pompadour († 1764). In the reign of Louis XVI. Queen Marie Antoinette liked to retreat to Choisy, which remained in the possession of the crown until the French Revolution . The revolutionary government confiscated, parceled out and sold the national property . The neglected and dilapidated buildings were eventually demolished in the 19th century.

Only the two entrance pavilions, the courtyard, a wing of the farm buildings, the trenches and the remains of the park in the style of the French gardens have been preserved .

Building history

Château de Choisy, courtyard elevation, engraving by Jean Mariette, from: L'architecture françoise, around 1727
Château de Choisy, elevation of the facade on the garden side, engraving by Jean Mariette, from: L'architecture françoise, around 1727
Château de Choisy-le-Roi, ground floor plan. Engraving by Jean Mariette, from: L'architecture françoise, around 1727
Château de Choisy-le-Roi, first floor plan. Engraving by Jean Mariette, from: L'architecture françoise, around 1727

Louis XIV (baroque)

1680-1693

Construction of the castle began in 1680 on the corridors of the former settlements of Choisy-sur-Seine (today: Choisy-le-Roi), Thiais and Grignon .

The contract for the construction was signed by the building contractor and contrôleur général des Bâtiments de Louis XIV Jacques II Gabriel (*; † 1686). He appeared at the same time as a building contractor and architect and seems identical to the person referred to in the literature as architect Jacques I Gabriel . Jacques Gabriel ended his active working life in 1684 and died in 1686. Jacques Gabriel is the father of Jacques Jules Gabriel (* 1667; † 1742), who is also known as Jacques IV Gabriel . After his father's retirement, Jacques Jules played a key role in the completion of the château and the work was ascribed to him after it was completed.

The conclusion of the contract was certified by the following persons. Marie Delisle, (the mother of Jacques Jules Gabriel and widow of Jacques Gabriel) ; Charles Gabriel, (the uncle of Jacques Jules) ; Maurice Gabriel, (a cousin of Jacques Gabriel) ; M. Jules Hardouin-Mansart , (a cousin of the mother of Jacques Jules Gabriel, Marie Delisle) ; Chevalier de l'ordre de Nôtre Dame du Mont Carmel, et de St. Lazare de Hierusalem, Coneiller du Roi en ses Conseils, director of the Bastimens Arts et Manufactures de France; Gabriel Blanchard , (painter and professor at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture ); Chemet, Contrôleur-Général des Rentes sur la Clergé and Jacques Gabriel, the architect and building contractor as well as the cousin of Maurice Gabriel , who was later appointed as auditor and named in the documents as Architecte Ordinaire des Bastimens de Mademoiselle de Montpensier .

In 1680 Jacques Jules Gabriel was still very young. Since he was not mentioned when the contract was signed, it is likely that his share of the construction project only rose after his father's retirement and death. It is also possible that he later had an influence on the draft that was already contractually agreed. In any case, the completion of Choisy is his earliest work. Jacques Jules Gabriel learned from Jules Hardouin-Mansart (* 1646; † 1709) and apparently he was also involved in the construction of the château. The completion in July 1686 was of crucial importance for the reputation and the further life of the young architect Gabriel.

1693-1716

In 1693 Choisy becomes the property of the Grand Dauphin , the eldest son of Louis XIV and Maria Teresas of Spain . He exchanged the Bellevue Palace in Meudon with Anne de Souvré Marquise von Courtenvaux, the widow of François-Michel Le Tellier, marquis de Louvois for the Château de Choisy.

Claude Audran III had been furnishing the palace for the Grand Dauphin since 1699 . For this he created the tapestry series of the grotesque months produced in the Manufacture Royale des tapisseries . (Heinz, 1995: 250)

Louis XV (Régence, Rococo, le style transition , early classicism, le goût grec )

Choisy Castle at the time of Louis XV. View from the courtyard side. Engraving by Jacques Rigaud
Choisy Castle at the time of Louis XV. View from the garden side. Engraving by Jacques Rigaud

1716-1739

1739-1774

In 1739, Louis XV. Choisy and commissioned Ange-Jacques Gabriel (* 1698; † 1782) to plan further buildings. In the first construction phase from 1740–1747, the furnishings of the apartments in the existing château were adapted to the Rococo style .

Louis XVI (Late Classicism, le goût étrusques ) 1774–1789

Interior decoration

  • In his calculations, Charles-Antoine Coypel alludes to the work of his father Antoine Coypel (* 1661, † 1722) to decorate the ceiling of the Pavillon d'Aurore in Choisy, the result of an indescribable result of daily renegotiations between the painter and the Grand Mademoiselle.

Schemes of public and private spaces

1680-1716

  • Corps du Château
  1. Ground floor at Rez-de-Chaussée
  2. The first floor premier étage
  3. The attic mansard
  • Structure of the apartments
  1. Salon à l'Italienne

1716-1739

  • Corps du Château
  1. Ground floor at Rez-de-Chaussée
  2. The first floor premier étage
  3. The attic mansard
  • Structure of the apartments.
  1. you roi
  2. de la Reine

1739-1774

  • Structure of the apartments.
  1. you roi
  2. de la Reine
    1. le Grand Salon de la Reine
  • The main building Corps du Château
  1. Ground floor at Rez-de-Chaussée
  2. The first floor premier étage
  3. The attic mansard
  4. Escalier près la Salle des Gardes
  5. Escalier across from the Chapelle
  6. Corridor au-dessus de la Galerie
  7. Pavillon de M. le Gouverneur
  8. Corridor of the office
  9. Entresol par l'escalier ovale
  • Grand piano in the garden of Aile sur le Jardin
  1. Corridor au Rez-de-Chaussée
  2. Premier étage par l'escalier oval
"Vue du Petit Château de Choisy Le Roy du Cote du Jardin" (view of the Petit Château of Choisy Castle from the garden side)
Labyrinth in the gardens of Château de Choisy

Further plants in and around Paris during the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV

Archives

  • Archives de la Marie de Choisy-le Roi
  • Archives Nationales
  • Bibliothèque de la Ville de Paris
  • Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale
  • Mariette, Architecture française

literature

Primary literature

  • Oberkirch, Henriette von (1852) Memoirs of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, written by herself , (ed.) By her Grandson, the Count de Montbrison, 3 vol., London: Colburn and Co. Publishers.

Secondary literature

  • Reginald Blomfield: A History of French Architecture. Hacker Art Books, New York 1973, ISBN 0-87817-056-9
  1. From the Reign of Charles VIII till the Death of Mazarin, 1494-1661 . 1973 (Vol. 1–2, reprint of the London 1921 edition).
  2. From the Death of Mazarin till the Death of Louis XV, 1661-1774 . 1973 (Vol. 3–4, reprint of the London 1921 edition).
  • Allan Braham: The Architecture of the French Enlightenment. Thames and Hudson, London 1980, ISBN 0-500-27570-X .
  • Barbe Chamchine: Le château de Choisy. Jouve, Paris 1910 (also Paris, Univ., Faculté des lettres, Diss., 1909–1910)
  • P. Delacroix: Le Château de Choisy, la ville de Choisy-le-Roi, Thiais, Orly, Villeneuve, Ivry et Vitry. Études historiques et monumentales. 1867.
  • Eleanor P. DeLorme: Garden Pavilions and the 18th Century French Court. Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk 1996.
  • Ingrid Dennerlein: The garden art of the Régence and the Rococo in France (Green series; 4). Werner, Worms 1981, ISBN 3-88462-009-6 (Zugl .: München, Univ., Phil. Fak., Diss., 1962).
  • Svend Eriksen: Early Neo-Classicism in France. The creation of the Louis Seize style in architectural decoration, furniture, and ormolu, gold and silver, and sêvres porcellain in the mid-18th century. Faber and Faber, London 1974, ISBN 0-571-08717-5 .
  • David Fleck, J.-M. Milliex: Monographie d'une ancienne voie royale, la RN 186. Du Chateau de Versailles au Château de Choisy-le-Roi , EA Paris-Belleville 1990.
  • Michel Gallet: Paris Domestic Architecture of the 18th Century. Barrie & Jenkins, London 1972, ISBN 0-214-65302-1 .
  • Maximilien L. Gardel: Ninette à la cour: ballet en action; représenté devant Leurs Majestés, à Choisy, pour la première fois, et à Fontainebleau en 1777. Ballard, Paris 1777.
  • Mark Girouard: Life in the French Country House. Cassel, London 2000, ISBN 0-304-35400-7 .
  • Jules M. Guiffrey: Comptes des bâtiments du roi sous le règne de Louis XIV. Impr. Nationale., Paris 1881 (5 vols.).
  • Dora Heinz: European tapestry art of the 17th and 18th centuries. The history of their production facilities and their artistic objectives. Böhlau Verlag, Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-205-98163-4 .
  • Paul Jarry: La guirlande de Paris ou maisons de plaisances des environs, au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle. Notes et relations d'un voyage autour de la Capitale à quatre lieues à la ronde . Contet, Paris 1928 ff.
  1. Berny, Bourg-la-Reine, Cachan, Chatenay, Chatillon, Choisy-le-Roi, Gentilly, Ivry, L'Haÿ-les-Roses, Sceaux, Thiais, Vitry . 1928.
  • Wend von Kalnein: Architecture in France in the eighteenth century. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 1995, ISBN 0-300-06013-0 .
  • Katharina Krause: The Maison de plaisance. Country houses in the Ile-de-France (1660-1730) (Artistic Studies; Vol. 68). German Kunstverlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-422-06175-4 (also. Habilitation thesis University of Freiburg / B. 1992).
  • Iris Lauterbach: The French garden at the end of the Ancien Régime. "Nice order" and "tasteful symmetry" (Green series; 9). Werner, Worms 1987, ISBN 3-88462-047-9 (Zugl .: Mainz, Univ., Diss., 1985).
  • Denise Ledoux-Lebard: Le Mobilier Francais du XIXe Siecle 1795-1889 Dictionnaire des Ébénistes et des Menuisiers. Les éditions de l'Amateur, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-85917-088-X (earlier edition under the title “Les ébénistes du XIXe siècle” and “Les ébénistes parisiens du XIX siècle”).
  • Georges Poisson , Françoise Blondel (Réd.): Demeures royales disparues. Bellevue, Choisy-le-Roi, Marly, Meudon, Saint-Cloud, Saint-Germain . Les Presses artistiques, Paris 1950 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name in the Musée de l'Ile-de-France, château de Sceaux).
  • Georges Poisson, Marie-Alice Poisson: Un édifice de Gabriel retrouvé. Le petit château de Choisy ... In: Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français . Paris 1953.
  • Alexandre Pradère: French Furniture Makers. The Art of the Ébéniste from Louis XIV to the Revolution ("Les ébénistes français de Louis XIV à la révolution"). Sotheby's Publications, London 1989, ISBN 0-85667-368-4 .
  • Katie Scott: The Rococo Interior. Decoration and Social Spaces in the Early Eighteenth-Century Paris. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 1995, ISBN 0-300-04582-4 .
  • Reaud Serrette: Décor intérieur et ameublement du château de Choisy-le-roi sous Louis XV and Louis XVI (1739-1792). Université de Paris-Sorbonne, UFR Art et archeologie, Paris 2002 (3 volumes).
  • Christopher Tadgell: L'Eglise royal et paroissiale de Choisy : In: Bulletin de la sociétè d'histoire de l'art français . 1973, pp. 171-179.
  • William H. Ward: The Architecture of the Renaissance in France. A History of the Evolution of the Arts of building, Decoration and Garden Design under Classical Influence from 1495 to 1830. Hacker Art Books, New York 1976, ISBN 0-87817-097-9 (reprint of the London 1926 edition).
  1. The early renaissance . 1976.
  2. The later renaissance . 1976.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ (Bloomfield, 1921: 56, vol. III) Reference to (M. Guiffrey, M. (1881) Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi.
  2. ↑ (Bloomfield, 1921: 56, vol. III) Reference to (Guiffrey, M. (1881) Comptes des bâtiments du roi ... , vol. Iv) and (Lemonnier M. (....) Procès-Verbaux de l'Académie royal d'architecture , ii, 125.) both could not understand the family tree of the Gabriels beyond doubt.
  3. ↑ (Bloomfield, 1921: 56, vol. III)
  4. ↑ Bloomfield, 1921: 58, vol. III

Coordinates: 48 ° 45 ′ 46.5 "  N , 2 ° 24 ′ 32"  E