Salon des Fleurs Chateau de Compiègne

photo St Tyl

This is the Salon de Fleurs in the Château of Compiègne, formerly a royal and imperial residence. I wandered these rooms over the week-end when I went to see the exhibit Folie Textile, a wonderful show that explores the exuberant production and use of textiles at the time of Napoleon III, 1848-1871. That exhibit and some important restoration work in historic sites is making the 19th century weigh heavily in decorative world's time line these days, provoking a certain rediscovery of  decorative arts of the mid to late part of the century. More on that soon, but for today...

The Salon des Fleurs was a game room for Empress Josephine - specialty tables are scattered for playing  trictrac, quadrille, bouillotte. 

(Trictrac is backgammon. Does anyone know the names of these other games in English?)

source: Napoleon III

An important thing to remember is that in the 19th century very often fabrics were used that were woven for a prior reign (new olds) and older decors were sometimes kept by the various regimes that succeeded each other - Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis-Philippe, Napoleon III.  The reasons: availability, economy, emulation.

During the Second Empire of Napoleon III, the salon was used as a bed chamber for the Imperial Prince  The young prince scratched the date 4 décembre 1868 into the marble table 

and

Bourdelin, (c) RMN

played his games in another well-dressed room. 

photo St Tyl

The Salon des Fleurs takes its name from its decoration. The oil panels painted in 1809 and 1814 

by Dubois were  based on the work of Pierre-Joseph Redouté.

photo St Tyl

The armchairs and settees by Jacob-Desmalter are covered in Gobelins tapestry.The 18th century floral design by Louis Tessier of was chosen by the Empress Josephine and delivered in 1809 - once again,  

an example of  the blending of stylistic frontiers. 

photo St Tyl

detail of the canapé

The ground of the tapestry is a fair lilac shade with a band 

of crisp, violet grosgrain to give  the finishing touch. 

These tones will deepen in textile design as the century progresses even to deep purple and become very popular with the advent of color-fast aniline dyes.

photo St Tyl

A tender, watercolor quality still comes through in this 1st Empire /early 18th century tapestry.

 château de Compiègne

Étoffe d'époque

photo: RMN Anne-Sophie Grillat for the Manufacture Prelle

This yellow Gros de Tours with lilac-filled medallions was woven for Napoleon when he planned the   installation of his fourth salon in his apartments at the chateau of Versailles. In order to help the silk manufacturers of Lyon get back on their feet after the revolution, Napoleon  placed colossal  fabric orders, delivered from 1811 till 1813 and which were to make up a tremendous stock for all  the successive governments. This particular fabric was woven and delivered by Jean-Pierre Seguin of Lyon in 1812 at a time when  Napoleon was no longer concerned with decorating his appartments. A large part of the unused meterage was stored in the garde meuble de la couronne furniture depository. 

photo St Tyl

 Josephine Bonaparte bought the chateau de Malmaison in 1799 and it briefly became the seat of the French government from 1800 until 1802. Finding the residence too small, Napoleon installed the Premier Consul at St Cloud. Josephine continued living and embellishing Malmaison. She retired there definitively after her divorce in 1809 and there she died  in 1814.

Napoleon III, Josephine's grandson who had fond memories of his childhood sojourns at the chateau,  acquired Malmaison in 1861. Since the original furishings had long been dispersed, he decided to replace it with pieces that had furnished Josephine's salon at the palace of St Cloud and which remained there still at the time of the Second Empire. Before installing the furniture, he had it covered with the yellow medaillon fabric Napoleon I had had woven in 1812. We might speculate that in using these elements having belonged to Josephine and the Empire fabric to cover them, Napoleon III showed  concern for  authentic period decoration.

photo St Tyl
Hector VIGER 
 The Empress Josephine receiving the Tsar Alexander at the Malmaison

The above painting contains a  scene commissioned from Hector Vigier by Napoleon III. It shows the meeting of the Tsar Alexander with Josephine surrounded by her children, Eugene and Hortense, and with her grand children, Napoleon-Louis and Louis-Napoleon. 

Even with genuine Empire furnishings and fabric, the scene is anachronistic in that it shows the Salon Doré with its post-1861 decoration.

photo St Tyl

Today the condition of the upholstery necessitates its replacement and the chateau, a museum since 1906,  is  reproducing the precious silk to match the original quality of 1812 in every way. The reproduction is provided by the esteemed silk weaver, Prelle.

photo: RMN Anne-Sophie Grillat for the Manufacture Prelle

preliminary sampling 

photo RMN Marc-Antoine Mouterde for the Manufacture Prelle

photo: St Tyl

As the re-weaving continues, the newly upholstered furniture is replaced little by little in the salon. 

for more: Salon doré Malmaison

Josephine's forgotten gown

photo: Picot-Brocard

The Figaro reports on a forgotten gown owned by the Empress Josephine which has recently resurfaced.  The dress was sent for restoration at the embroidery atelier of François-André Picot, official embroiderer of the Emperor in the beginning of the 1800s never to leave the workshop. It is now up for auction at Osenat in a sale of Empire objects and furnishings to take place December 4th at Fontainebleau. One assumes sufficient time has elapsed for the garment's perfect restoration.