26 Masterpieces to See at the Palace of Versailles

This large-scale canvas depicts an episode in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus meets a sinful woman, traditionally identified as Mary Madgalene, over supper in the house of the Pharisee Simon. As often in Venetian painting, the son of God is surrounded with biblical figures as well as profane characters. This work is part of a series of religious banquets painted by Veronese between 1562 and 1573, including the Louvre’s Wedding at Cana. This particular scene, started around 1570, was meant for the refectory of a Venetian convent. In 1664 Louis XIV purchased the work for 10,000 ducats and got permission to move it to France. After spending time both at Versailles and the Louvre, The Feast in the House of Simon was permanently transferred to Versailles in 1961.

The Hall of Mirrors—Galerie des Glaces in French—is one of the iconic rooms in the palace. It was built between 1678 and 1684 to replace a large terrace exposed to the weather. Louis XIV, who deemed him “the greatest French artist of all times,” commissioned painter Charles Le Brun to design the gallery’s vaulted ceiling. The artist picked 30 scenes celebrating the king’s reign, from his rise to power in 1661 to the peace treaties of Nijmegen signed in 1678–79. Opposite the windows, overlooking the garden, are 357 mirrors; some saw these as proof that French artistry rivaled that of the Venetians, but others saw them as a ploy by architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart to limit Le Brun’s opportunities to impress Louis XIV. The Hall of Mirrors was witness to events of historic significance, including the Proclamation of the German Empire in 1871 and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

Pierre Mignard painted the king’s children and grandchildren on several occasions, from the Duke of Anjou to the Duke of Berry. This portrait stands out as an allegory of passion. The winged child with golden hair resting in a comfortable, silky bed is Cupid, the god of love in Roman mythology. This is how painter Pierre Mignard chose to represent the four-year-old Count of Toulouse, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, a son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. The child’s posture evokes that of Baby Jesus in Giovanni Battista Salvi’s Madonna and Child, which Mignard enjoyed and studied during his stay in Italy, between 1635 and 1657. A recent restoration has made the artist’s signature legible — it was painted on the wall supporting the cassolette, on the left.

The young woman in the center of the painting is the water nymph Clytie, or Clytia. According to myth, she was in love with the sun god Phoebus . Though he spurned her, Clytie could not stop gazing at the god as he blazed across the sky; finally she turned into a sunflower. The story, told in Book IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was approved as a subject for Charles de La Fosse’s 1688 painting by Louis XIV himself. It decorates a door overlay of the Salon des Malachites in Versailles’s Grand Trianon, whose decoration is mostly about love.

In 1701, 63-year-old Louis XIV commissioned Hyacinthe Rigaud to paint a portrait of himself for his grandson Philippe d’Anjou, who had just risen to the Spanish throne and wanted to take a painting of his grandfather with him to Spain. The Sun King liked the painting so much that he decided to keep it and to have a copy made for Philippe. Today the original hangs in the Louvre and the Château de Versailles holds the duplicate, created by Rigaud’s studio. Both versions show an aging monarch with royal attributes (sword, scepter, crown, spurs) and graceful legs—those of a dancer who posed for the artist.

French philosopher and writer François-Marie Arouet, aka Voltaire, is portrayed in a three-quarter bust, wearing a powdered wig and Regency-style clothing with extended cuffs and a long string of buttons. This canvas by Nicolas de Largillière dates either from 1718 or, more likely, from 1724–25. Two versions belonged to Suzanne de Corsembleu de Livry, the thinker’s mistress, who kept the one now at Versailles—considered to be the original—and gave the Marquess of Villette the other, now held in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris.

This graceful portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier features the sixth and favorite child of King Louis XV holding a golden cord. Is she threading or unthreading? This painting, the replica of which hangs in the Uffizi Museum in Florence, shows the kind of manual activity Madame Adélaïde and her sisters engaged in daily. It was placed in the apartment of her sister Madame Victoire. The determination in her eyes, the way she firmly holds what is in her hands, convey her independent spirit, not to say her domineering nature.

With her husband, the Count of Polignac, Yolande de Polastron led a quiet life until Marie-Antoinette took her under her wing. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun portrayed the queen’s friend more than once. Here, she wears a light dress and a straw hat with field flowers. The simplicity of this outfit conveys the image of fuss-free life, far from the intrigue-heavy court.

Le Brun borrowed the motif of a hatted woman from a painting by Peter Paul Rubens that she had seen in Antwerp. Rumor has it that Marie-Antoinette gave it as a token of her gratitude to the man who helped the duchess escape to Basel on the night of July 16, 1789.

This group portrait was made by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun with the intention of refurbishing Marie-Antoinette’s tarnished reputation. In July 1795, Louis XVI’s wife was wrongly accused of participating in a crime to defraud the Crown’s jewelers. Although innocent,

the queen was a notorious spendthrift, so it did not take much for the public to believe she had something to do with the affair. What better way to ease the people’s mind than to offer them the picture of a loving mother? To gain greater sympathy, Le Brun included an empty cradle in her composition, in memory of Sophie Hélène Bréatrix, the royal couple’s youngest child, who died in infancy before the painting was completed.

A former slave who bought his freedom with his own savings, Jean-Baptiste Belley was the first French deputy of color to have a seat at the constituent assembly, founded after the French Revolution to draft a constitution. He played a great part in the first abolition of slavery in 1794. Anne-Louis Girodet painted him in 1797 as a representative of the Republic,  a cloudy sky behind him but in clothing that brightens the composition. He is leaning against a bust of Abbé Raynal, another promoter of human rights. When Napoleon reestablished slavery in 1802, he had Belley demoted, arrested, and deported.

In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned Jacques-Louis David to paint his portrait. If the artist had in mind to immortalize him, sword in hand, on the battlefield on the Marengo Plain, the First Consul wanted to appear “calm, on a restless horse.” (Bonaparte did not agree to pose, arguing that “Alexander probably never sat for Apelles.”) The composition is dynamic as it follows a diagonal, and Bonaparte seems to be staring at—and therefore implicating—the viewer. His red cap contrasts with the austerity of the landscape, but along with the white horse and the blue uniform, it refers to the colors of the French nation. For some reason, Jacques-Louis David did not sign this work, the third version of a five-canvas series, which caused some critics to question its authorship.

In 1241 Louis IX went to fight the Poitevin barons, rebellious vassals supported by Henry III of England. The French monarch defeated them at Taillebourg on July 21, 1242, forcing the English king to sign the 1259 Treaty of Paris. In 1834 Eugène Delacroix was commissioned to paint the battle for Versailles’s Galerie des Batailles (Gallery of Battles) just after Louis-Philippe turned the palace into a museum devoted to the “all the glories of France.” There are very few records of the fight; nobody is even sure it happened, let alone if Louis IX took part in it. Nonetheless, the painter placed the monarch in the center of the composition, clad in blue, surrounded by violent warriors—a perfect piece of official propaganda.

Ferdinand-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, was the eldest son of King Louis Philippe I of France. A patron of the arts, he was especially good friends with and a collector of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a leading proponent of Neoclassicism. Ingres painted him in 1844 in his official uniform in his Tuileries apartment, his downcast gaze meant to show majesty.

Bernini was one of the top sculptors of the 17th century, receiving commissions from Pope Urban VIII and other powerful figures. This is why Louis XIV invited him to work for the French Crown. Bernini accepted the invitation and created an equestrian statue of the monarch, but Louis XIV disliked it and had transferred from Versailles to the Orangerie. The sculpture was later altered by François Girardon into a portrait of Roman hero Marcus Curtius, known for sacrificing himself to Hades, the king of the underworld, so that nobody else would have to. Louis XIV’s hair was replaced by a helmet, and the rocks and the horse’s feet by flames—the flames of hell. Many missing parts were reconstructed in 1987, in plastic or plaster.

This group of seven marble statues was created in 1666 by François Girardon alongside Thomas Regnaudin for the Grotte de Téthys, a major component in the gardens of Versailles. The cave of the sea nymph was destroyed in 1684, and all the sculptures were moved in 1704 to form the first version of the Grove of Apollo’s Baths. In 1781 Hubert Robert designed the current display featuring Apollo served by nymphs. The figure of the solar god, freely inspired by the Apollo of Belvedere, also took on the features of Louis XIV. The statues were replaced by copies in 2008.

In 1661 Louis XIV launched a construction program for his beloved palace and asked his chief gardener, André Le Nôtre, to rethink and enlarge its gardens. Roman sculptor Jean-Baptiste Tuby also played his part, drawing inspiration from the Aurora fresco by Guido Reni in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome. Tuby’s work, executed between 1668 and 1671 and based on a design by Charles Le Brun, consists of 13 lead sculptures, including a depiction of Apollo on his horse-drawn chariot. The statuary group is one of the many mythology-infused commissions for Versailles in which the Sun God represents Louis XIV, the Sun King himself.

French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon is known for his busts and statues of famous philosophers, inventors, and political figures, including Denis Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Molière, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Napoléon Bonaparte. Louis XVI, the last king of France to live at Versailles before the fall of the monarchy in 1789, was another of Houdon’s subjects. It was a long process. Members of the stock exchange commissioned a marble bust of the king in 1778; three years later Houdon was still waiting for an audience with the monarch. The work was eventually finished and unveiled at the 1787 Salon. But was it the plaster version or the marble one now at Versailles? Critics do not agree on the matter.

The fashion for jewelry chests adorned with Sèvres porcelain plaques was launched at Versailles when the young dauphine Marie-Antoinette received one for her wedding in May 1770. Her sisters-in-law, the Countess of Provence and the Countess of Artois, each owned one. Cabinetmaker Martin Carlin was entrusted with the frame design. The 13 porcelain plates, with cutouts tailored to the paneling, were commissioned from the Royal Manufactory at Sèvres. The piece was conceived as a writing table—the drawer reveals a writing pad—topped by a chest meant to hold jewelry cases. Some elements, including the bronze trimmings, refer to the mastery of André-Charles Boulle, the first artist to have designed this type of furniture in the early 18th century.

Contrary to popular belief, André-Charles Boulle is not really the inventor of marquetry, though he brought this art to its highest degree of perfection. This sarcophagus-shaped chest of drawers from Louis XIV’s room at Trianon is testimony to a rare sense of harmony. This sumptuous piece of furniture is supported by a set of four double legs. Each has a bronze foot resembling a screw on the inner side, while a gilded lion’s paw faces outward. Its originality lies in its curvy decorations, including acanthus leaves, espagnolettes, and rosettes. Each corner features the face of a winged sphinx, a mythological creature associated with mystery.

This cylinder desk, meant for Louis XV, is considered one of the finest ever made in France. It was designed in the 1760s by Jean-François Oeben, cabinetmaker to the king, and was completed almost 10 years later by Jean-Henri Riesener, one of Oeben’s workers, who succeeded him in his position. When Riesener took over, the desk frame had already been assembled and the plaster casts and plans for the complex opening mechanism had been drawn up. The finished work was presented to the sovereign and installed in his new cabinet, where he would receive his secretaries of state, in May 1769.

This armchair, decorated with lily of the valley, pine cones, and ears of wheat, is part of the “mobilier aux épis” (wheat-ear furniture) set commissioned for the queen’s bedroom in 1787. Carpenter Georges Jacob was responsible for the whole design, with sculptor Baptiste Rode helping to materialize the pieces. The painting work is by Jean-Baptiste Chaillot de Prusse, who was famous for his natural, artifice-free style. The flowery upholstery was made in Lyon in the Desfarges workshop. Two armchairs, two additional chairs, a folding screen, and a mantel screen initially displayed together were dispersed during the French Revolution. The bed seems to have disappeared in the 19th century, whereas the fauteuil de toilette, or dressing chair, is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

This astronomical clock was named after Claude-Siméon Passemant, the engineer who spent 35 years working on it. This particularly imposing work (84.6 x 32.6 x 20.4 inches), finished in 1754, is one of the few objects that, after their arrival at the Versailles court, never left the premises, not even during the revolutionary turmoil of 1789. It is a sublime example of rocaille art, defined by a combination of gilding with light polychromy and curved lines. Recently cleaned and restored, this extraordinary piece, testimony to Louis XV’s fascination with science, is divided into four parts: a sphere for tracking equinoxes, solstices and eclipses; an innovative four-hand dial; a disc indicating the phases of the moon; and a pendulum serving as a natural thermometer. This national treasure once sounded 864 times a day, but a “silent” mode was added to the settings to protect the king’s sleep. (Which goes to show: Apple didn’t invent anything.)

Between 1775 and 1780, the Sèvres porcelain manufactory developed an interest in (and skill in executing) hard paste, a kind of ceramic first made in China. This technique was applied to the three egg-shaped vases with copper rings, ropes, tassels, and handles, which Marie-Antoinette acquired in 1776 for her cabinet doré (golden cabinet). The set was painted by Louis-François Lécot, who found a way to harmoniously blend gilded areas together with wash drawings in blue, pink, green, and black. The characters were outlined in gold or black in imitation of Chinese silk motifs. The subtle work on the gilded bronze mounts speaks to the mastery of Italian goldsmith and bronze maker Jean-Claude-Thomas Duplessis.

This figure of Chinese Emperor Qianlong, a biscuit (bisque) porcelain made at the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres in the 1770s for the French royal family, celebrates the friendship that France and China had in the 18th century. It comes from a rare series of 13, the first of which was sold to Marie-Antoinette. It all started with Giuseppe Panzi, a Jesuit painter at the Chinese court, who painted a watercolor portrait of Emperor Qianlong wearing a fur cap with a large pearl. His work ended up in the hands of Secretary of State Henri-Léonard Bertin, a great lover of Chinese art who worked to introduce into France the Chinese technique of hard-paste porcelain (which uses more of a mineral called kaolin). Panzi’s composition inspired painter Charles-Eloi Asselin’s design for this popular piece.

This monumental clock with an exotic design of four richly harnessed dromedaries, two women in Turkish-style clothing and headdresses, and a tent reminiscent of a sultan’s lodging, combined with crescent and pearl motifs, is the work of François Rémond, one of the finest master chiselers and gilders of the 18th century. It was delivered to Versailles in 1781 for the Count d’Artois’s second Turkish cabinet. The young prince owned three similar pieces—two at the Château de Versailles on the second floor of the Midi Wing, and the third at the Palais du Temple, his Paris residence. These three objects stemmed from the growing popularity of turqueries—artifacts inspired by Ottoman styles—in the 1770s and 80s.