Fireplace screen from the Count of Provence’s bedroom in Versailles

Localisation : The Large Corner Room
Année de création :1788
Artiste :Jean-Baptiste Boulard

Description

This screen was delivered to Versailles in 1786 by the joiner Jean-Baptiste Boulard, for the bedroom of the count of Provence, Louis XVI’s brother. The upholsterer Capin was in charge of upholstering it with a gros de Tours decorated with flowers, palm trees and birds’ nests on a white background.

The detachable frame made it possible to easily change the fabric between winter and summer. Included in the garde-meuble at the time of the court’s departure in 1789, it was then successively owned by Jean-Jacques Régis Cambacérès, second consul, the Dowager Duchess of Orleans, and Louis-Philippe, who had it sent to the Château d’Eu in 1824; the Duke of Aumale purchased it at the auction of his father’s belongings. In 1841, the screen is mentioned in the suite of the Duchess of Nemours: at the time it was upholstered with a pink Beauvais tapestry decorated with a magnificent bouquet of flowers au naturel.