Château de Sceaux
TheChâteau de Sceaux(French pronunciation:[ʃɑtod(ə)so]) is a grandcountry houseinSceaux, Hauts-de-Seine,approximately 10 km (6 mi) south-southwest of thecentre of Paris.Situated in a large park laid out byAndré Le Nôtre,partly inAntony,visitors can tour the house, outbuildings and gardens.
The former château was built forJean-Baptiste Colbert,Louis XIV's minister of finance, who purchased thedomainein 1670. The present château, designed to evoke theLouis XIII style,dates from theSecond Empire.Some of Colbert's outbuildings remain, as well as the bones of the garden layout. The Petit Château operates as the Musée de l'Île-de-France, a museum of local history. Thecommuneoperates the site as theMusée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux.
History[edit]
The seigneurie of Sceaux appears in 15th-century documents, but little remains above ground of the château built for the family Potier de Gesvres in 1597. Colbert turned to some of the premier royal architects and craftsmen to design a seat worthy of his station, the architect brothersClaudeandCharles PerraultandAntoine Lepautre,and thepremier peintre du roiCharles Le Brun.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay,son of Colbert and minister of the Navy, inherited Sceaux in 1683. He added sculpture byFrançois GirardonandAntoine Coysevox.His embellishments to the grounds extended the formal terraced layout, the bones of which remain, and excavated the Grand Canal, a kilometre in length, along the valley bottom. Le Nôtre laid out a main axis centred on the château and descending in a series of terraces to the valley bottom, then rising on the far side. The main axis is crossed by two grand secondary axes at right angles, one delineated by the Allée de la Duchesse and the formal stone cascade that flows down to fill an octagonal basin, the other the Grand Canal.
Jules Hardouin-Mansartbuilt theOrangerie,which was inaugurated by the King at a fête in 1685. Sceaux was sold in 1699 to Louis's illegitimate son,Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine,whose wife,Anne, Duchess of Mainemade it the setting for her glitteringsalonin the first decades of the eighteenth century, which reached its apogee in theGrandes Nuitsof 1714–15, sixteen fêtes of music and opera-ballets that unfolded every two weeks and drew the best musicians of France, under the direction ofJean-Joseph Mouret.The salon at Sceaux attracted the youngVoltaire.The Duchess of Maine had thepavilionof the Ménagerie built, to designs byJacques de La Guépière,and gave it a garden setting, to the north of the château; only its foundations remain.
Demolition[edit]
During theFrench Revolutionthe property was confiscated as abien national,its contents sold for the benefit of the nation, and the building bought by M. Lecomte, a merchant ofSaint-Malo.Under theConsulate,the original château was demolished, but the pavilion of Aurore, the Orangerie, the stables, and outbuildings were preserved. Crops were grown on Le Nôtre's terraces.
The restored castle[edit]
The duc de Trévise, son of Napoleon'sMaréchal Mortier,who had married the daughter of M. Lecomte, inherited thedomaineand set to restoring the park and the pavilion and Orangerie. The gardens were restored, with parterres and gravel largely replaced by clipped lawns. In 1856-62 he erected the present smaller château in brick with stone quoins, designed to evoke theLouis XIII style,designed by the architect Augustin Théophile Quantinet and built by Joseph-Michel Le Soufaché.
In 1922, the heiress of Trévise, princesse de Faucigny-Cystra, planned to give up Sceaux to real estate developers; through the efforts of the mayor Jean-Baptiste Bergeret de Frouville it was preserved and opened to the public of the town that had grown up around the park.
Museum of Île-de-France[edit]
Since 2010, the Petit Château houses the Musée de l'Île-de-France. This museum contains one of the largest collections of works by painters of theSchool of Paris.
References[edit]
- archived website in English
- Musée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux,live website in French
48°46′28″N2°18′00″E/ 48.77444°N 2.30000°E
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