Charles-Nicolas Cochin II, Fireworks Display Presented to the Dauphin..., 1736; Etching and engraving; Gift of the funds from the Print and Drawing Council

L'Ancien Régime: Life at the French Court

Saturday, June 30, 2007—Sunday, December 9, 2007
Gallery 315
Free Exhibition

The glittering society of Versailles was a popular subject in prints in 17th- and 18th-century France. For the estimated 1,000 courtiers who kept rooms at the ch
âteau, a dizzying schedule of amusements was offered each season—fêtes, masquerade balls, outdoor theater performances and concerts, fireworks displays—with no expense spared. Arranging these entertainments and parties was important business, overseen by an official bureaucratic department of the king’s household—called the Menus Plaisirs du Roi—which employed a small army of artists, architects, and craftsmen to execute the elaborate undertakings.

The prints in this show, drawn from the permanent collection (although many never before exhibited in the museum), capture the splendor of the Ancien Régime—or “Old Regime” as post-Revolutionary France termed the former system of aristocratic rule. Many of the printmakers, such as Charles Nicolas Cochin II, Jean-Michel Moreau, and Jean Le Pautre, were commissioned by the kings to commemorate the most important of these celebrations and fêtes, with a desire to propagate, both at home and abroad, the grandeur of their reigns. Ironically, these widely disseminated images of the frivolity and decadence of courtly life may also have fostered mounting tensions against the royal regime, helping to turn the oppressive system on its head at the end of the 18th century.