Monday, November 30, 2009

The softer side of Versailles

Not every room at Versailles is gilding, glitz and glamour (the 3 G's). A set of rooms on the first floor enfilade feature some very pretty boiseries with colorful details.
I think they're the prettiest rooms in the palace and are a very cozy size of approx 15' square.The chamber adjacent is painted all white, I doubt this is original but I really love the look of this. It's as if you bought an old victorian or tudor house with dark paneling and wanted to brighten it up a bit. All that dark wood can get so depressing.
I just loved the way the sun streamed in across the face, picking out the brightness of the colors.
The room which was set up as a private library had beautiful red leather journals behind glass and a sparkling crystal chandelier.While the bed chamber of the apartment had a more delicate porcelain chandelier. Definitely a girls room.
This amazing turquoise rococo clock floating on mirror above a fireplace was just spectacular.Don't you think these are the prettiest rooms you've seen in a long time?I loved the subtle turquoise theme in these rooms - these chairs would have only been enhanced by footstools in red leather and maybe a sisal rug and a mirrored sidetable to hold a drink (but thats if this was my own house and not a historically accurate museum!).You just can't take a bad picture in these rooms!

21 comments:

Enzie Shahmiri said...

I love these type of rooms. The ornamentation and color choices were so well thought out.

P.Gaye Tapp at Little Augury said...

once again your photographs are perfectly beautiful.la

cotedetexas said...

seriously - lets move in here. i'll bring the seagrass, you bring the table.

cotedetexas said...

scott and ben can stay home. maybe they would like each other. :)

Greet Lefèvre said...

Thanky thank you so much for sharing these beautiful pictures ! They are a source of inspiration for carving work to me!!!

Greet

Blue said...

These were rooms of a private apartment, I think, away from the noise and smell of the state apartments. Beautiful color scheme and and so light i effect.

Lize said...

Just enough of everything, well designed and decorated, but not ostentatiously! Beautiful pics!

magnaverde said...

The big panorama & the French period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY are the closest I've been to Versailles, but I'm with you on the charm factor of small spaces. Sure, the big gilt-&-mirror salons in the Wrightsman galleries at the Met are beatiful, but it's the little oval room & Marie Antoinette's even smaller boudoir, big enough for about 5 people--and fewer than that if the women were wearing big dresses--that show how little a space one really needs to make a memorable interior. Assuming, of course, that he has the same kind of talent that the designer of those rooms had.

This tiny room (and I don't think I've ever seen pictiures of it before) is like a playful rebuke to the bombastically overscaled & overdecorated showhouses I saw on a house tour last fall. I'm ready to move in, too, so we may all have to take turns. Thanks for sharing.

pve design said...

I suddenly imagine myself "painting" and "blogging" from that amazing room! I just love that shade of blue and all that detail.
pve

the.neo.lifestyle said...

I agree with everybody the place is wonderful, the carving is to die for :-)

Don't know if i would not retouch a bit of the colors, but that's not the question here. The pictures a very nice.

Thanks

David

elizabeth said...

I adore this type of detailing.. I marvel at the workmanship it entails... simply breathtaking.

I'd probably never leave my room if it looked like these..
thanks for sharing.

Janet said...

The colors are so beautiful...I just love the light streaming in too.

Laura said...

My, so lovely! And wonderful to see something that is not gilded at Versailles...who would have thought that the word "subtle" would ever be associated with this palace? You've found the best of the place...

ALL THE BEST said...

Beautiful post! I have been curious about blogs and kindle...b&w...hmmmmm?

Unknown said...

This is so nice to read a gorgeous to see!!! And I have to smile... How our travels influence our writing, nothing that I wonder about, just it is so interesting!

Check out my post on German design if you like!

XX
Victoria

Renae Moore said...

Oh my...this is so beautiful. I have been to Versaille but I was a young woman of 24 and did not look with the eye that I would today. Stunning.

Samuel John Lima said...

Very nice! I've never been in this part of Versailles.

gésbi said...

I hadn't been to the chateau for a few years, but my daughter is passionate about Louis XIV and especialy all his "Favorites," so we have been over twice recently. She's ready to move in so we'd go with your ideas of footstools and side tables in the library. Aren't proportions important to make us feel at home! I love your pictures with such beautiful lighting.

Anonymous said...

Lovely. Have you read Nancy Mitford's Sun King and Madame de Pompadour? KDM

M said...

Stefan -- Thanks for returning to Versailles now and again from different angles. I've only been once and, needless to say, you hardly scratch the surface with a single visit. Gotta get there again sometime soon. (Do you know the palace at Fountainebleau? Brilliant.)
All the best!
Michael

Kwana said...

I just love these pics.