Splendor Of France

Covering more than forty properties scattered throughout France, a lavish volume captures their diverse architecture; rich interiors; priceless furniture, paintings, and sculpture collections; and fabulous gardens in all their glory.

This intimate tour provides a lesson from Jacques Garcia in the art and technique of historic house and garden restoration. The Château de Villette, situated in a lush woodlandnear Paris, has been an oasis of art and beauty sinceits construction (1663–69) according to François Mansart’s plans. Among its prestigious ownerswas Sophie de Grouchy, wife of the Marquis de Condorcet. As leading political actors of their era,she and her husband hosted some of the most intellectuallyinfluential salons of the prerevolutionaryperiod for an international elite that included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine. The Marquis de Lafayette was a witness at the couple’swedding at Villette in 1786. New owners have commissioned Jacques Garcia to restore the house and gardens to their idyllic former glory. Presented here for the first time, the result is averitable museum of French craftsmanship, with interiors featuring fabulous silks and passementeries, as well as eighteenth-century paintings, decorative arts,and furniture. The original stone features and elegant trumeaux and boiseries of the château’s historic dining room have been restored to their initial splendor.Villette’s austerely elegant facade houses an octagonal grand salon that gives way to magical vistas of formal gardens inspired by Le Nôtre, cascading fountains,reflecting pools, and eighteenth-century sculptures,sphinxes, and an obelisk, alluding to classical artistic traditions and eighteenth-century aesthetics. All-new photography, along with drawings by architectural historians Bernd Dams and Andrew Zega, illustrate this lavish volume.

France's Empire period, guided by the grand visions of the Emperor Napoleon, was one of the most sumptuous and creative epochs in French art, architecture, and decoration. By 1800, Neoclassical architects Percier and Fontaine had left an indelible mark on the Imperial residences and on the palatial homes of the country's leading families. The elegant decorative sensibility of this period reflected a nostalgia for the treasures of ancient Rome and Egypt and resulted in the creation of stunning, opulent interiors to match equally regal facades. Empire Splendor is a gorgeous photographic odyssey through France's most splendid Neoclassical residences, including extravagant chateaus, beautiful urban palaces, and Napoleon's official domiciles. Renowned curator Bernard Chevallier leads a detailed, room-by-room tour through the finest Empire antechambers, bedrooms, libraries, salons, and beyond. This is a captivating visual experience for historians, decorators, and art lovers alike.

Blends myth, history, art, and passion of France's past into a study of the country's modern image.

A captivating novel of rich spectacle and royal scandal, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow spans fifteen years in the fateful reign of Marie Antoinette, France’s most legendary and notorious queen. Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen’s elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deeper fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty. From the early growing pains of marriage to the joy of conceiving a child, from her passion for Swedish military attaché Axel von Fersen to the devastating Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Marie Antoinette tries to rise above the gossip and rivalries that encircle her. But as revolution blossoms in America, a much larger threat looms beyond the gilded gates of Versailles—one that could sweep away the French monarchy forever.

Colette Ghysels herself provides detailed captions for all the illustrations, identifying materials and craft methods, giving tribal names and uses for the objects, and offering a more sophisticated appreciation not only of the value, rarity, and significance, but of the beauty of each work.