article Louis XIV’s medal cabinet at Versailles1 Robert Wellington when swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin Struck to commemorate almost all notable the Younger (1654-1728) visited France for the events from the reign, when these medals were third time in 1687, he wrote a memoir of the placed alongside their ancient precursors they extraordinary things that he had seen there. became an extension of the premier numismat- Alongside his account of the more famous ic cabinet in France. By amassing a vast numis- gardens, galleries and salons of the palace of matic collection, Louis XIV created a distinctly Versailles is an extended account of Louis XIV’s French encyclopedia of history that culminated Cabinet des Médailles – one of the most opulent in a celebration of his own reign. rooms in the château. The walls of the Cabinet Tessin’s sketch of the Cabinet des Médailles were covered with mirrors, it had a coffered appears on a sheet of paper folded three times, dome decorated in lapis lazuli blue with gilt into eighths, presumably to make a more stable rosettes, and gold stuccowork abounded. The surface to draw upon as the Swedish party room held a precious collection of cabinet was conducted around the palace. When the paintings by some of the greatest early modern sheet is unfolded, the study is perpendicular masters, small silver and bronze statuettes, to a text describing the Cabinet that includes a extraordinary engraved gems, and armoires plan of the space in ink amongst Tessin’s near filled with more than 27,000 coins and medals. impenetrable handwriting (fig. 2). On the back At the end of his account of the medal cabinet, of the sheet is an elevation of a section of the Tessin suggested that ‘the small sketch that the Hall of Mirrors (fig. 3) next to a rough study of little time I had there permitted me to make, Domenico Guidi’s sculptural group The King’s will provide a little more clarification’.2 This Renown (fig. 4). The hurried sketches that sketch (presumed to be lost when Tessin’s Tessin executed on this sheet of paper bring memoir was transcribed and published in 1927) together the two most significant new spaces is held in the collection of the Nationalmuseum, created at Versailles in the 1680s with a statue Stockholm (fig. 1).3 Remarkably, Tessin’s tiny that celebrates Louis XIV as a great man of study is the only extant elevation of a room in history with a numismatic allegory. Louis XIV’s Versailles that was once described Guidi’s sculpture, executed after a design by the Mlle de Scudéry as ‘infinitely superior to by Le Brun, had been delivered to Versailles in all that has been seen…’4 September 1686, and was one of the most recent Unfortunately, very little remains of what additions to the palace gardens when Tessin was once the most lavish space in the château, saw it the following year. It was so admired remodelled in the mid-eighteenth century to by Louis XIV that it was moved to pride of accommodate the royal family and eventually place at the centre of the Orangerie, displacing becoming Louis XVI’s Salon des Jeux in the Bernini’s ill-fated equestrian monument.6 The 1780s. Named for the most numerous of items King’s Renown presents Louis XIV as the prime that it contained, the Cabinet des Médailles agent of history through an allegory of Clio, (sometimes called the Cabinet des Curiosités) Time and a portrait of the king. This reading contained one of the greatest numismatic is confirmed by the description beneath the collections in the world, a resource of unparal- engraving of Guidi’s statue, presented as the leled importance for the antiquarian study of frontispiece to the revised 1693 edition of history.5 Louis XIV, as well as being the most Claude-François Ménestrier’s Histoire du règne prolific subject portrayed in medals of any ruler de Louis le Grand par les médailles…: before or since, was a great collector. The Histoire métallique of the king was inextricably linked History … holds the portrait of the king and the to the royal collection of gems and medals. Annals of his Reign on the wings of Time while 12 THE MEDAL No. 67, 2015 article 1. Tessin: Elevation of Envy twists under the feet of History trying in his history for posterity, and especially in his the lateral wall of the vain to divert her from her Enterprise. Beneath medals. The numismatic resonances that are Cabinet des Médailles at the feet of Time are consular fasces and arms found throughout Charles Le Brun’s decorative Versailles, c.1686, pencil that time destroys insensibly. Medals of Alexan- scheme for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles – on paper, Nationalmuseum der, Scipio, Julius Caesar, and Trajan are at Histo- a space that Gérard Sabatier described as the Stockholm. (Photo: Cecilia ry’s side a little gnawed at the edges because ‘grand médaillier du roi’ – is another inter- Heisser / Nationalmuseum) Time always causes some loss of the memory of esting case in point.9 As many scholars have Great Men, which would be more considerable noted (including Alan Stahl in his article 2. Tessin: Plan and if History had not taken care to preserve their above), Louis XIV had a personal interest in description of the Cabinet Great Deeds.7 his collection of coins, medals and engraved des Médailles at Versailles, gems, and passed many hours in his medal c.1686, pencil on paper, What must have delighted Louis about this cabinet at Versailles, attesting to the popular- Nationalmuseum group when it arrived at Versailles was to see ity of numismatic study at his court. It is no Stockholm. (Photo: Cecilia his own image held up as the object of history’s coincidence that Tessin’s sketch of the Cabinet Heisser / Nationalmuseum) admiration in the lineage of great men repre- appeared alongside his sketches of Guidi’s sented in portrait medals in the lower register sculpture and Le Brun’s gallery on that sheet (fig. 5). He was shown to be an agent of history, of paper. Through this seemingly disparate the inheritor of a glorious tradition exempli- group of studies the Swedish architect exposes fied by Alexander, Scipio, Julius Caesar and the numismatic theme found throughout the Trajan through the compositional device of visual histories of Louis XIV. With medals repetition. It was an antiquarian allegory that playing a central role in the formation of the harnessed the medal as a bearer of historical Sun King’s image for posterity, the Cabinet facts to draw comparison between the French des Médailles at Versailles was a site for the king and the ancients – an activity available historical self-fashioning of Louis XIV. to scholars in the king’s medal cabinet in the Louis XIV’s personal interest in his collec- palace close by. tion increased markedly in the 1680s, when he The numismatic allegory of Guidi’s sculp- ordered designs for two new rooms adjacent ture was born from a culture of antiquarian- to his apartments at Versailles to house his ism at Louis XIV’s court that inspired a new collection. The ascendancy of François-Michel approach to the documentation of the king’s le Tellier, marquis de Louvois (1641-91) to the history in images and objects.8 I contend that position of Superintendent of Royal Buildings this influence can be felt throughout Louis on Colbert’s death in 1683 coincided with the XIV's commissions in the arts that document final renovations to the vastly enlarged palace THE MEDAL No. 67, 2015 13 article 3. Tessin: Studies of the Hall of Mirrors and Domenico Guidi’s The King’s Renown at Versailles, c.1686, pencil on paper, Nationalmuseum Stockholm. (Photo: Cecilia Heisser / Nationalmuseum) at Versailles. As the new official seat of the son of the more famous André) identified the monarchy and administrative centre of France, various personifications in this ceiling in his it was deemed prudent to move the king’s most 1703 description of Versailles.13 Above and to precious objects to new rooms in the palace the right of the doors to the cabinet there is a unequalled in splendour. The first room, figure of Asia wearing a turban and holding entered via the vestibule to the right at the top a dish of perfumes. Opposite her is Europe in of the new ambassador’s staircase, came to be the guise of Minerva surrounded by the instru- known as the Salon de l’Abondance (Salon ments of war. These figures represent the of Abundance).10 It contained magnificent regions from where the treasures in this and displays of the carved agate and rock-crystal the next room were sourced, while the figures vases, vessels and bowls, now housed in the of Pluto, Neptune and Thetis refer to the mate- Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre.11 The room rials from which they are made: Pluto, the god was exceptionally sumptuous, with all of these of the underworld, where precious metals and highly polished vessels returning the light of stones were mined; Neptune and Thetis, gods the silver chandeliers and candelabrum – a of the sea, the province of pearls, shells and glittering plenitude expressing the wealth and corals. Through the allegory formed by these fecundity of the reign.12 personifications the Salon de l’Abondance The theme of the ceiling in the salon, painted and the Cabinet des Médailles beyond it are by René-Antoine Housse (1645–1710) after Le presented as a princely Wunderkammer, with Brun’s design, are the riches of Louis XIV and materials gathered from many parts of the the perpetual glory that they will bring to his known world representing the universal order name.