Chteau de Villette: The Splendor of French Dcor
By (Author) Guillaume Picon
Photographs by Bruno Ehrs
Editions Flammarion
Flammarion
1st July 2018
France
General
Non Fiction
728.80944367
Hardback
246
Width 238mm, Height 310mm
2000g
This intimate tour evokes the lifestyle of eighteenth-century French nobility and provides a lesson in the art and technique of historic house and garden restoration.
The Chteau de Villette was built in Condcourt outside of Paris at the end of the seventeenth century according to the plans of Louis XIV's architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart and surrounded by luscious formal gardens designed by Le Ntre. Its magnificent artistic and artisanal heritage has been carefully preserved and restored by the current owners and enhanced by Jacques Garcia's recent renovation.
With its magnificent hexagonal hall, Chteaude Villette boasts the first formal dining room conceived for a French chteau, complete with carved stone buffets and corner fountains. Other rooms have been enhanced with fabulous silks rewoven in Lyon, and furnished with a world-class collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century furniture and paintings. The gardens, with their shaded bosquets, sculptures, obelisks, and cascading water features have been restored according to their original designs. The privately-owned chteau was classified as a historical monument in 1942, and has been the scene of numerous films, including The Da Vinci Code.
"... Fully restored to its original glory, Chteau de Villette offers visitors an unforgettable experience of lavish hospitality that combines modern comforts with aristocratic lustre, which a new book by Flammarion, Chateau de Villette : The Splendor of French Decor , beautifully illustrates." YAZTER
Guillaume Picon, historian, editor, and curator, is the author of A Day at Chteau de Fontainebleau (2016) and Versailles: A Private Invitation (2011), published by Flammarion, and several books on French history and painting.
Bruno Ehrs is one of Sweden's leading photographers. Flammarion has published his work in Villa Balbiano: Paradise Restored on Lake Como (2018), Chaumet: Parisian Jeweler since 1780 (2017), A Day at Chteau de Vaux-leVicomte (2015), Vacheron Constantin: Artists of Time (2015), and One Saville Row, Gieves & Hawkes: The Invention of the English Gentleman (2014).