I guess you can call this a "house" of the week, but perhaps "small chateau" might be a better way to describe this exquisite residence.
Le Petite Trianon
Le Petite Trianon was designed by Ange-Jacgues Gabriel for Louis XV and was built between 1762-68. It was built for Louis XV's mistress Madame de Pompadour, but she died before it's completion. When Louis XVI ascended the throne in 1774 he gave the chateau to his young wife, Marie Antoinette. She used the residence as a way to escape from the pressure of court life at Versailles.
Here is a great description:
"His (Gabriel's) best-known structure, the Petit Trianon—designed for Mme de Pompadour in 1761 and considered among the most perfect buildings in France—is one of several modest works he erected for the court. At the Petit Trianon, the handling of the order, the window frames, balustrades, and other features derive closely from the French Classical tradition. Gabriel's debt to the past is equally apparent in the building's noble aura of imperturbable dignity, its harmonious proportions, and the precision and elegance of its detailing. But the deceptively modest structure exemplifies Neoclassical taste, for it is severe in its cubic geometry, restrained in articulation, and barren of the accents of relief sculpture typical of seventeenth-century French design."
— Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p409-10.
In the warming kitchen...
The Salon
The sitting room off of Marie Antoinette's bedroom
Her bedroom
Marie Antoinette by Madame Vigee Lebrun, this portrait hangs in the billiard room at Le Petite Trianon
Another portrait by Mme Lebrun, who painted the Queen several times. This one is more informal, and one wonders if this type of simple dress is what she wore at Le Petite Trianon in her garden.
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