The Hercules Salon ( French: Salon d'Hercule ) is located on the second floor of the Palace of Versailles . Being the first salon of the King’s Great Chambers , it connects them with the Northern wing of the palace and the palace chapel .
Initially, the penultimate, fourth, Versailles chapel was located on this site and the Hercules salon occupied the upper gallery of this chapel. The construction of the salon was started in 1710 by the architect Robert de Côte for King Louis XIV, and at first it was called a new salon near the chapel . However, after the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the work was postponed [1] .
At the beginning of 1724, the construction of the Hercules salon was resumed. The works commissioned by King Louis XV were completed by the architect Jacques Gabriel , the marble painter Claude-Felix Tarle and the sculptors Jacques Verberkt and Francois-Antoine Wasset [1] . The general course of work was controlled by the Duke d'Antin , who replaced in 1708, as the Director of the Residences of the King of the famous Jules Arduin-Mansard .
The interior design was completed in 1736 by a painting on the ceiling of the Apotheosis of Hercules by Francois Lemoine , which gave the salon its real name [2] .
This room of the Great Chambers is decorated with only two canvases - both works by Veronese . Above the fireplace is Rebekah at the well ; and on the opposite wall, forming a pair, is placed the famous canvas Dinner by Simon the Pharisee [2] . Louis XIV received this painting as a diplomatic gift from the Doge of Venice in 1664. Due to its size - height 4.5 meters and width 9.7 meters - the painting was first in the Louvre Palace in the Apollo Gallery . She was placed in the Hercules salon in 1730, and she remained there until 1832 when she was transferred again to the Louvre . In 1961, the painting Dinner by Simon Pharisee returned to the Hercules salon . In 1994, the painting was restored with the help of the Society of Friends of Versailles and the BNP . [3]
Under Louis XV, the room was used as a ballroom , since the Mars salon seemed too small for the king, and the Mirror Gallery was very large. A ball on the occasion of the wedding of the eldest daughter of Louis XV, Maria Louise Elizabeth, and the infant of Spain, Philip, was held in the Hercules salon on January 26, 1739 (Luynes, 335-345). And on January 5, 1769, a gala dinner of the Large Cutlery was held in the salon on the occasion of the wedding of Louis Philippe (II) Joseph, Duke of Orleans [4] . After the destruction of the Stairs of the Ambassadors in 1752, Louis XV hoped that a new staircase of the palace would adjoin the Hercules salon [4] .
During the reign of Louis XVI, the Hercules salon received diplomatic functions, for example, it hosted the reception of the embassy of Bey Tunisia (January 1777); receptions of representatives of the Third Estate of the General States (May 1789); Reception of the Embassy of the Sultan of Mysore (September 1778) [5] .
Painting on the ceiling
The attention of anyone entering the salon of Hercules is riveted to the Ascension scene, depicted on the ceiling of the cabin. This voluminous image was created by Francois Lemoine for three years (1733-1736) and it is rightly on a par with the painting of neighboring shades by Lebrun. The ceiling shows how Hercules opens the door to Olympus and, at the same time, into immortality. The painting covers about 230 square meters and contains 142 characters.
The grand opening of the salon was timed to coincide with the marriage of the eldest daughter of Louis XV, Maria Louise Elizabeth in 1737, and all the guests, being in the salon, spoke only about the talent of the artist. As a result, Louis XV awarded Lemoine the title of First Court Artist . Alas, a few months later Lemoine committed suicide by inflicting 9 wounds on himself with a dagger. Many believed that hard work and the death of his wife, which had happened shortly before this, put the artist on the brink of madness. Of course, the perfectionism of Lemoine contributed to his tragic death, however, according to the testimony of the Duke de Lyuin , there may have been other more tangible causes of suicide. For his masterpiece Apotheosis of Hercules, Lemoine received 10,000 ecu , while the artist's expenses amounted to 29,000 livres , of which 24,000 livres went to blue ultramarine , due to which the painting on the ceiling has such realistic quality [6] .
| Rebekah at the well the second half of the XVI century; works of Paolo Cagliari, nicknamed Veronese , (1528–1588) | Dinner at Simon the Pharisee of 1570; works of Paolo Cagliari, nicknamed Veronese , (1528–1588) | The Apotheosis of Hercules 1733-1736 (ceiling) by Francois Lemoine , (1688-1737) |
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Verlet, 1985 , p. 321.
- ↑ 1 2 Verlet, 1985 , p. 322.
- ↑ Restoration of the canvas (Fr.) . The website of the Society of Friends of Versailles. Date of treatment January 7, 2013. Archived January 12, 2013.
- ↑ 1 2 Verlet, 1985 , p. 323.
- ↑ Verlet, 1985 , p. 555.
- ↑ N. Jacquet, Secrets of Versailles, 2011, Parigramme, p. 80
Literature
- Pierre Verlet . Palace of Versailles = Le château de Versailles. - 2nd ed., Revised. - Paris: A. Fayard, 1985 .-- 740 p. - ISBN 978-2-213-01600-9 . (fr.)