Hélène Cavalié, General Curator of Heritage, Deputy Director of Collections at Mobilier National, Manufactures Nationales, Sèvres & Mobilier National, offers us this exceptional tour led by one of the exhibition’s three curators: Wolf Burchard from the Metropolitan Museum, Emmanuelle Federspiel, or Antonin Macé de Lépinay.
In 1668, as the young King Louis XIV was preparing to make the Louvre his main residence, he entrusted his First Painter, Charles Le Brun, with an unprecedented project: to design a decoration of carpets woven at the Manufacture nationale de la Savonnerie to adorn the floor of the longest gallery in Europe. Nine meters wide and 442 meters long: a titanic undertaking that mobilized the best craftsmen and artists of the Grand Siècle. Between 1668 and 1688, 92 carpets were created, embodying both monarchical splendor and the virtuosity of French craftsmanship.
Never installed in the Louvre, the carpets were scattered, lost and rediscovered over the centuries. Today, 41 original pieces remain in the collections of the Manufactures Nationales, 33 of which are in remarkable condition. The Mobilier National is their guardian and restorer.
From February 1 to 8, around thirty of these carpets will be brought together for a special exhibition in the nave of the Grand Palais. These monumental works will also be displayed alongside a carpet created for the Galerie d’Apollon, offering a striking panorama of French decorative genius.
The exhibition reveals the beauty, excess, and woven memory of this royal project that has become a heritage treasure.
A fleeting, spectacular, and deeply moving event—the rediscovery of a collective masterpiece, symbolizing the prestige of the Manufactures Nationales and the living heritage they still embody today.`
This a French language visit
To register, please contact Cassandra Surer (cassandrasurer@yahoo.com)
