48°48′56″N 2°06′35″E / 48.815639°N 2.109675°E
The Petit Trianon (French pronunciation: [pəti tʁijanɔ̃]; French for 'small Trianon') is a Neoclassical style château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France. It was built between 1762 and 1768 during the reign of King Louis XV. The Petit Trianon was constructed within the gardens of a larger royal retreat known as the Grand Trianon.
The Grand Trianon (French pronunciation: [ɡʁɑ̃ tʁijanɔ̃]) is a French Baroque style château situated in the northwestern part of the Domain of Versailles in Versailles, France. It was built at the request of Louis XIV as a retreat for himself and his maîtresse-en-titre of the time, the Marquise de Montespan, and as a place where he and invited guests could take light meals (collations) away from the strict etiquette of the royal court. The Grand Trianon is set within its own park, which includes the Petit Trianon (a smaller château built in the 1760s, during the reign of Louis XV).
A baldachin, or baldaquin (from Italian: baldacchino), is a canopy of state typically placed over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over high altars in cathedrals, where such a structure is more correctly called a ciborium when it is sufficiently architectural in form. Baldachins are often supported on columns, especially when they are disconnected from an enclosing wall.
A cloth of honour or cloth of estate is a simpler cloth hanging vertically behind the throne, usually continuing to form a canopy. It can also be used for similar canopies in interior design, for example above beds, and for processional canopies used in formal state ceremonies such as coronations, held up by four or more men with poles attached to the corners of the cloth.
Ange-Jacques Gabriel (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʒ ʒak ɡabʁijɛl]; 23 October 1698 – 4 January 1782) was the principal architect of King Louis XV. His major works included the Place de la Concorde, the École Militaire, and the Petit Trianon and opera theater at the Palace of Versailles. His style was a careful balance between French Baroque architecture and French neoclassicism.
The temple de l'Amour (English: Temple of Love) is a garden folly of the Château de Versailles, and more specifically, in the Petit Trianon part of it. In the temple there is an angel which represents cupido (the lovemaker). This is one of the works of Richard Mique.
The Hameau de la Reine (French pronunciation: [amo də la ʁɛn], The Queen's Hamlet) is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette in 1783 near the Petit Trianon in Yvelines, France. It served as a private meeting place for the queen and her closest friends and as a place of leisure. Designed by Richard Mique, the queen's favoured architect, with the help of the painter Hubert Robert, it contained a meadowland with a lake and various buildings in a rustic or vernacular style, inspired by Norman or Flemish design, situated around an irregular pond fed by a stream that turned a mill wheel. The building scheme included a farmhouse, (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse. Each building is decorated with a garden, an orchard or a flower garden. The largest and most famous of these houses is the "Queen's House", connected to the Billiard house by a wooden gallery, at the center of the village. A working farm was close to the idyllic, fantasy-like setting of the Queen's Hamlet.
The hameau is the best-known of a series of rustic garden constructions built in this era, notably the Prince of Condé's Hameau de Chantilly (1774–1775) which was the inspiration for the Versailles hamlet. Such model farms, operating under principles espoused by the Physiocrats, were fashionable among the French aristocracy at the time. One primary purpose of the hameau was to add to the ambiance of the Petit Trianon, giving the illusion that it was deep in the countryside rather than within the confines of Versailles. The rooms at the hameau allowed for more intimacy than the grand salons at Versailles or at the Petit Trianon.
Louis XVI style, also called Louis Seize, is a style of architecture, furniture, decoration and art which developed in France during the 18-year reign of Louis XVI (1774–1792), just before the French Revolution. It saw the final phase of the Baroque style as well as the birth of French Neoclassicism. The style was a reaction against the elaborate ornament of the preceding Baroque period. It was inspired in part by the discoveries of Ancient Roman paintings, sculpture and architecture in Herculaneum and Pompeii. Its features included the straight column, the simplicity of the post-and-lintel, the architrave of the Greek temple. It also expressed the Rousseau-inspired values of returning to nature and the view of nature as an idealized and wild but still orderly and inherently worthy model for the arts to follow.
Notable architects of the period included Victor Louis (1731–1811), who completed the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux (1780). The Odeon Theatre in Paris (1779–1782) was built by Marie-Joseph Peyre (1730–1785) and Charles de Wailly (1729–1798). François-Joseph Bélanger completed the Chateau de Bagatelle in just sixty-three days to win a bet for its builder, the King's brother. Another period landmark was the belvedere of the Petit Trianon, built by Richard Mique. The most characteristic building of the late Louis XVI residential style is the Hôtel de Salm in Paris (now the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur), built by Pierre Rousseau in 1751–1783.