The Petite Commande of 1664: Burlesque in the Gardens of Versailles Thomasf

The Petite Commande of 1664: Burlesque in the Gardens of Versailles ThomasF. Hedin It was Pierre Francastel who christened the most famous the west (Figs. 1, 2, both showing the expanded zone four program of sculpture in the history of Versailles: the Grande years later). We know the northern end of the axis as the Commande of 1674.1 The program consisted of twenty-four Allee d'Eau. The upper half of the zone, which is divided into statues and was planned for the Parterre d'Eau, a square two identical halves, is known to us today as the Parterre du puzzle of basins that lay on the terrace in front of the main Nord (Fig. 2). The axis terminates in a round pool, known in western facade for about ten years. The puzzle itself was the sources as "le rondeau" and sometimes "le grand ron- designed by Andre Le N6tre or Charles Le Brun, or by the deau."2 The wall in back of it takes a series of ninety-degree two artists working together, but the two dozen statues were turns as it travels along, leaving two niches in the middle and designed by Le Brun alone. They break down into six quar- another to either side (Fig. 1). The woods on the pool's tets: the Elements, the Seasons, the Parts of the Day, the Parts of southern side have four right-angled niches of their own, the World, the Temperamentsof Man, and the Poems. The balancing those in the wall. On July 17, 1664, during the Grande Commande of 1674 was not the first program of construction of the wall, Le Notre informed the king by statues in the gardens of Versailles, although it certainly was memo that he was erecting an iron gate, some seventy feet the largest and most elaborate from an iconographic point of long, in the middle of it.3 Along with his text he sent a view. This essay is dedicated to an earlier program there. It drawing in his own hand (Fig. 3).4 The dotted line represents was launched in 1664, ten years before the Grande Com- the new gate.5 With a scattering of lines in the bottom half of mande. It consisted of eight statues, one-third the number of the sheet he acknowledged the new axial pathway and the the later commission. It was carried out by two sculptors, not transverse pathways that branch off it; together they form a T twenty-four or more. It called for the use of stone, not mar- pattern. On the border of the space he sketched the eight ble. It stood in a low, rather remote spot in the northern half right-angled niches of which we have just spoken. They are of the gardens, far from the elevated stage of the chateau. paired, two at the end of the axial pathway, two at the end of This more modest program appealed to the playful and even each transverse pathway, and two at the new gate. These somewhat ribald inclinations of the court at this hour, a far niches would house the Petite Commande. cry from the serious cosmological interests of a later hour. It casts a fresh light on the youthful world of Louis XIV, who in The Four Rustic Couples 1664 was just twenty-six years old. I will call it the Petite The commission for the eight sculptures went in equal shares Commande in grateful acknowledgment of Francastel. to Louis Lerambert and Philippe de Buyster. We know from Versailles in 1664 was a modest country house to which the the royal account books that the sculptors were chiseling king went with his closest friends to ride and hunt. The Petite away at their seven-foot stone statues in September 1664 and Commande, a suite of statues of satyrs and hamadryads, that they installed them in the niches of the Rondeau in the embodied the rustic character of the place (Figs. 5-12). The first few months of 1666 (App. 1). Owing to later revisions in statues have always been appreciated for their rusticity, joie the gardens, the statues remained at the Rondeau for only de vivre, and swagger, but little else. That they constituted a twelve years before being moved to the Fontaine d'Apollon at unified program has never before been proposed. That they the end of the western axis. Fifteen years later they were entertained the king and his court with their erotic and often moved again, this time to the gardens of the Palais-Royal in comical behavior has never before been commented on. That Paris. The statues were withdrawn from public view shortly they challenged a certain enlightened class of viewers by before the Revolution, the last that anyone has seen of them engaging them in clever intellectual games has never before (App. 2). It was during their period of exile from the Ron- been considered. Masquerade and parody are at the heart of deau that Guillet de Saint-Georges, the historiographer of the the Petite Commande. When it arrived there, it had the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, penned his northern half of the gardens to itself, and it left a lasting very informed accounts of the statues (App. 3). impression on the region. It differs radically from the Apollo The statues were still standing at the Rondeau when Jean program in the western zone, which followed it by one or two Le Pautre and FranCois Chauveau engraved them in the early years (Figs. 26, 27). It poses a bold challenge to some of our to mid-1670s (Figs. 5-12). The prints were published in the oldest assumptions about the meanings and purposes of the Cabinet du Roi, a series of folio volumes with illustrations of gardens. The end result is a new and very different Versailles. the artistic and scientific triumphs of the reign. Inscriptions in both French and Latin were composed by the Petite Aca- The Rondeau, Also Known as the Grand Rondeau demie, a committee of savants that advised the Batiments du Beginning in the first half of 1664, Le N6tre thoroughly Roi on matters of allegory and erudition. A painter, possibly revised the northern zone of the gardens of Versailles, dou- Adam-Francois Van der Meulen or a member of his studio, bling its size by moving the axis from the center of the facade represented four statues in situ in 1674 (Fig. 4).6 It postdates to the corner and by formalizing the compartments of land to the birth of the Petite Commande by ten years and its arrival 652 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2001 VOLUME LXXXIII NUMBER 4 1 Plan of Versailles, 1668. BNP, Cab. des Est., Va 78f, vol. 1 at the Rondeau by eight. In those intervening years the (Fig. 5) and the Satyre, accompagne d'un petit satyre (Fig. 6), northern zone of the gardens had taken on a different face eyeing one another from their niches on either side of the with the addition of the Fontaine de la Sirene, on the terrace Allee d'Eau; they are partners. Also there, along the left edge, outside the chateau;7 the Fontaines des Couronnes, one in is Lerambert's Joueuse de tambour, avec un petit amour aupres each half of the Parterre du Nord;8 the Fontaine de la Pyra- d'elle (Fig. 8) and, along the right edge, Lerambert's Satyre mide, on the flat landing at the end of the Parterre du Nord [Pan] (Fig. 11). These two statues are coupled not to one (Fig. 30);9 the Bain de Diane, in the retaining wall below it another but rather to statues outside the frame, both by the (Fig. 28);10 and the Fontaines d'Enfants, on the slopes of the same Lerambert. It is here that the printmakers come to our Allee d'Eau (Fig. 29).11 These works were executed in the rescue: the Faune (Fig. 7) is coupled to the Joueuse de tambour later 1660s, in plenty of time for Van der Meulen to put them avec amour (Fig. 8). Standing together at the new gate, and into his background. In his foreground we see the Fontaine again outside Van der Meulen's view, are Buyster's Nymphe du Dragon, a later addition to the Rondeau.12 The original tenant une couronne de chesne [Flore] (Fig. 9) and Buyster's world of the Petite Commande had none of these spectacles. Satyretenant une grappe de raisin (Fig. 10). Along the right edge It was a quiet, deserted place, a backwater. of the painting is Lerambert's Satyre [Pan] (Fig. 11), the The statues in the center of Van der Meulen's view are both partner of Lerambert's Danseuse (Fig. 12).13 The painting is by Buyster, the Joueuse de tambour, accompagne d'un petit satyre proof that Le Pautre and Chauveau represented the statues BURLESQUE IN THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES 653 ',PBJPL -lii)BSR*+riS$tJ .:r ?`? r,??c, t? .1",..~ ?.; ?i? .? t??;u \. ( ;iU,-;..T-;:-.\V*;-rv? ?'?;" - " L:.Ilx TI'""r? r. .-4 1,-.-4 1, ?r :-. ?i?ja T ?- r*C,? " ' ?;urr' ' """'` 2 Pierre Patel, perspective view of the chateau and gardens of Versailles, oil painting, 1668. Versailles, Musee de Versailles, inv. no. 765 (photo: RMN) in their proper directions, and also that they fabricated the around them. The statues are of landscapes paired opposite * - C sexes. face one another and their ped- They through space, F? , ? C ???~1 estals are angled correspondingly. In one case, Le Pautre ran his landscape and cloud patterns from print to print, more or less proving that the statues pictured there were partners (Figs.

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