Louvre
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement. Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. In 2018, the Louvre was the world's most visited art museum, receiving 10.2 million visitors.
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is located in the department of Yvelines, in the region of Île-de-France, about 20 kilometres southwest of the centre of Paris.
Palace of Fontainebleau
The Palace of Fontainebleau or Château de Fontainebleau, located 55 kilometres southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence for the French monarchs from Louis VII to Napoleon III. Francis I and Napoleon were the monarchs who had the most influence on the Palace as it stands today.. It is now a national museum and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, interior decorator and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of all time", he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and much influenced by Nicolas Poussin.
François Girardon
François Girardon was a French sculptor of the Style Louis XIV or French Baroque, best known for his statues and busts of Louis XIV and for his statuary in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
Louis Le Vau
Louis Le Vau was a French Classical Baroque architect, who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was born and died in Paris.
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henry IV to Napoleon III, until it was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871.
Guillaume Coustou the Elder
Guillaume Coustou the Elder was a French sculptor of the Baroque and Style Louis XIV. He was a royal sculptor for Louis XIV and Louis XV and became Director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1735. He is best known for his monumental statues of horses made for the Chateau of Marly, whose replicas now stand in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors is the central gallery of the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France. Within the hall, the German Empire was declared in 1871 and the Treaty of Versailles signed by the victorious powers of World War I in 1919.
Château de Chantilly
The Château de Chantilly is a historic château located in the town of Chantilly, France, about 50 kilometers north of Paris.
Jacques Sarazin
Jacques Sarazin or Sarrazin was a French sculptor and painter of the early Baroque and Style Louis XIV. His prominent works include the caryatides on the facade of the Pavillon de l'Horloge of the Louvre (1636). ( His preparatory drawings in chalk have become more prominent in recent decades. He oriented the French Baroque toward classicism.
Savonnerie manufactory
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period c. 1650–1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers. The manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant.
Louvre Palace
The Louvre Palace is a former royal palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Originally a fortress built in the medieval period, it became a royal palace in the fourteenth century under Charles V and was used from time to time by the kings of France as their main Paris residence. Its present structure has evolved in stages since the 16th century. In 1793 part of the Louvre became a public museum, now the Musée du Louvre, which has expanded to occupy most of the building.
Étienne Le Hongre
Étienne Le Hongre was a French sculptor, part of the team that worked for the Bâtiments du Roi at Versailles. Le Hongre was one of the first generation of sculptors formed by the precepts of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. At the Bain des Nymphes (1678–80) he was one of the sculptors providing lead bas-reliefs for the fountain setting that featured the work of François Girardon. Le Hongre provided other bronze figures for the Parterre d'Eau.
Gilles Guérin
Gilles Guérin (1611–1678) was a French sculptor, who created tomb sculptures and decorative sculptures for interiors, which were executed in a Baroque idiom. He was born and died in Paris. He was a pupil of the sculptor Nicolas Le Brun, the father of the painter Charles Le Brun.
Salon d'Hercule
The Salon d'Hercule is on the first floor of the Château de Versailles and connects the Royal Chapel in the North Wing of the château with the grand appartement du roi.
Félix Duban
Jacques Félix Duban was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Henri Labrouste.
Gardens of Versailles
The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French Garden style perfected here by André Le Nôtre. Beyond the surrounding belt of woodland, the gardens are bordered by the urban areas of Versailles to the east and Le Chesnay to the north-east, by the National Arboretum de Chèvreloup to the north, the Versailles plain to the west, and by the Satory Forest to the south.
Musée national des Monuments Français
The Musée national des Monuments Français is today a museum of plaster casts of French monuments located in the Palais de Chaillot, 1, place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre, Paris, France. It now forms part of the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, and is open daily except Tuesday. An admission fee is charged.
Style Louis XIV
The Style Louis XIV, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Charles Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–91).