[Animals] The "King's Animals" return to the Palace of Versailles in France.. Horses, tigers and elephants

[Love Pulse]

https://al-ain.com/article/palace-versailles-fair

 

 

An exhibition at Versailles revives the animals that lived in the residence of France's kings during the old regime prior to the 1789 Revolution.

The exhibition, which opened on Tuesday and will run until February 22, 2022, revives dogs, cats, horses, tigers, deer, monkeys, elephants, and others.

With new virtual technologies, the historic Palace of Versailles moves from France to China
The exhibition is being held in the Palace of Versailles, the most important royal palace in France and is located in Versailles, which is 25 kilometers west of central Paris.

The exhibition is entitled “King’s Animals” and revives for the first time the famous octagonal building built in the Palace of Versailles in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV and dedicated to exotic animals of various kinds, with the aim of entertaining the kings and their entourage, and which was destroyed at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although these strange animals were a source of entertainment during the reign of the "Sun King" Louis XIV, they were also the subject of scientific, artistic and philosophical studies. The exhibition introduces this history through 300 pieces, including paintings, textiles, sculptures, objects, stuffed animals, films and podcasts, in addition to a children's tour of mythical animals such as dragons and chimeras.

The exhibition re-draws the history of this distinctive zoo, which was teeming with swans, sultan's chickens, ostriches, parrots and leopards, among others, and these animals were often gifts presented to the kings of France.

Louis XV and the cats
The curators explained that "since its inception, the Palace of Versailles has enabled a new relationship with the animal world. There was even fierce resistance in the court to the Cartesian animal hypothesis" that animals are machines without feeling or feeling. They added, "There was never a doubt in the palace of the kings of France that animals have a soul."

Among the many anecdotes about the animals of the Palace of Versailles that were present in this building, as well as inside the palace, in its forests and ponds, is that Louis XIV was tender to the common carp, while Louis XV loved cats, most notably the one who was called “The General” and painted by the artist. Jean Baptiste Audrey. As for the first elephant in Versailles, it is a female gifted by the King of Portugal to Louis XIV, and the display includes her skeleton.

  A maze
Among the animals that lived in the courtyard, outside the building, and which are also dealt with in the exhibition, were the horses, whose total number exceeded two thousand, and were an essential part of daily life and the grand royal ceremonies in the palace. Traction and saddle.

As for the dogs that lived in the wings of the palace, they were considered as toys and presented to women and children, while François Deporte accompanied the “Sun King” on hunting trips to paint his favorite dogs in natural situations, including “Zeit” and “Nonet”, or small monkeys.

The exhibition also allows visitors to get acquainted with a partially reconstructed version of a place of the palace that has disappeared since the time of Louis XVI, the "grove labyrinth". Designed by Versailles landscape architect and gardener André Lenotre in 1665, it had about forty fountains and 330 lead sculptures of animals.

Finally, the exhibition deals with the symbolic power and political significance of animals under the monarchy. The French rooster in the grove of "La Ronomé", a famous pond in the garden of the Palace of Versailles, symbolizes the conquest of Europe.

In the decorations of the Hall of Mirrors and the Salon of War, the eagle is the heraldic animal of the Holy Germanic Empire, the lion symbolizes Spain and the United Provinces, countries hostile to France, while the peacock represents the English vanity.