Paris trove visit to S.F. a 1st in U.S.
Michèle Bimbenet-Privat, a chief curator at the Louvre, picked up the egg-shaped agate ewer and turned it over, handling it as gently as a newborn with her whitegloved hands. First she showed a visitor to an installation-in-progress at the Legion of Honor the intaglio profile carved on the bottom of this delicate piece. Then, pointing to a tiny number etched into a slim gold band, Bimbenet-Privat offered clear evidence that this was a cataloged item from the collection of King Louis XIV of France, the celebrated Sun King, who reigned from 1643 to 1715.
Beguiling as those insider details were, the curator’s excitement mounted when she began to discuss the fine enamelwork that festoons the pedestal base, wraps the middle of the jar like a narrow ribbon and flares up in a winged mermaid handle and proud spout bearing a pert masked face below the lip. Look at the three different shades of green, she urged. And look here, at the translucent blue wings that reveal the ribbing on the underside.
“This craftsman wanted to show he could handle every type of technique,” said Bimbenet-Privat. Even a crack in the glowing bronze-toned agate, apparently repaired in the 19th century, seemed to delight her. At some 360 years old, this beautiful, fragile thing is a magnificent survivor.
As one of the great prizes in “Royal Treasures From the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette,” opening Saturday at the Legion, the ewer reflects both the refinement and the rarity of the decorative artworks that comprise this exhibition.
Holdings lost
Running as kind of counter melody to the chorus of grand tapestries, decorated hard-stone vases, painted porcelains and snuff boxes, gilt-bronze candelabra and inlaid furniture is the story of how much of the French monarchy’s precious holdings were lost.
Tapestries were burned by the hundreds during and after the French Revolution, the charred ruins sifted for a modicum of gold and silver threads. Ornate silverwork was melted down to mint coins. Diamonds were looted and whole storerooms sold off. Many items made their way into both public and private collections in Britain and the United States.
But even as the “Great Dispersal” was laying waste to the royal past, a crucial preservationist force arose. With the establishment of the Museum Central des Arts in the Palais du Louvre in 1793, some 124 objects from the royal collections found safe harbor. Three years later, hard-stone vases and other items from Marie-Antoinette’s holdings went to the Louvre.
Martin Chapman, the Fine Arts Museums’ curator in charge of European decorative arts and the driving force behind this show, regards Marie-Antoinette’s husband, Louis XVI, as a key figure. “He has not been treated kindly by history,” said Chapman of the last absolute French monarch, who was beheaded in 1793. “But give him credit for being a patron of the arts. The idea of the Louvre started under him.” More broadly, added Chapman, he was an Enlightenment thinker, even if he failed to brings those ideas to fruition.
The Louvre, of course, endured. Despite other sell-offs and politically driven maneuvers that lasted well into the 19th century, these kingly possessions are yet another certification of that museum’s unmatched importance in the preservation of French history and culture.
First time in America
Now, with an unprecedented loan, the Louvre is making these objects available in America for the first time. Aside from a show that traveled to Moscow, most of these “Royal Treasures” have never been seen outside of France.
Chapman was in high spirits as he walked through galleries bustling with the activity of an installation. A team of French curators and Legion staffers were focused on the careful work of unpacking and preparing the objects and assembling the vitrines to display them. A gleaming chandelier sat in an opened crate waiting to be hung. Tapestries towered on the walls. A number of the prized hard-stone vases, made of agate, lapis lazuli or bloodstone, were already fixed in their cases.
“Tapestries were the greatest and most expensive works of art,” said Chapman as he stood in front of one that Louis XIV presented to his chancellor in 1685. The image is dominated by two enormous winged figures holding the royal crown aloft. Emblems representing the chancellor, as Chapman pointed out, are modest, a kind of visual fine print at the bottom of the image. “It’s all about the glory of France and the king, not the recipient.”
Chapman lingered over an unusual arch-shaped tapestry that depicted the Sun King as the god Apollo before moving on to the gallery that holds a recently discovered set of charming painted doors and the hard-stones. Chapman peered into one case that held a red amber oval cup with dolphins frolicking inside. “That’s a very big piece of amber,” he noted.
Arriving at a rolltop desk that belonged to Marie-Antoinette later on, he admired the carved bas reliefs and intricate, finger-friendly drawer handles. He pointed out the spot reserved for a gold coffee grinder, which might have been operated by Louis XV himself or by his mistress Madame de Pompadour in an era when palace life became more intimately domestic.
Chapman, who curated a 2007 Marie-Antoinette show at the Legion, began working on this project in January. In part a tribute to the late Fine Arts Museums Director John Buchanan, a confirmed Francophile, “Royal Treasures” will inaugurate an ongoing loan arrangement with the Louvre. Details of future shows are forthcoming.
Mechanical table
While Chapman clearly relishes what’s to come, he’s just as happy to gaze backward, summoning 17th and 18th century court life to mind and finding fresh resonance. Paging through the show’s catalog pages in his office, he came upon an ingenious mechanical table that conceals a popup book shelf, fold-down writing surface and a user-friendly laptop desk. “Move over, Apple,” he said with a smile.
For Chapman, the merging of luxury and functionality is itself a timeless treasure. “I hope visitors will get a notion of the preciousness and craftsmanship of design,” said Chapman, “an idea that’s still very much present in objects made today.”