To enjoy for Christmas....
These gorgeous, beautifully re-imagined, rococo interiors are by Vicente García de Paredes, a Spanish artist who settled in Paris in 1884 where he specialised in 18th-century genre scenes. His watercolours were very popular at the time and were widely reproduced, notably in Le Monde Illustré. They appear regularly at auction.
.webp.png) |
| "Her Best Hand" - sold by Sotheby's in 2018 |
 |
| "The Raconteur" - sold by Christie's in 2015 |
 |
| Cenotaph of King Stanislas, Église Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, Nancy |
Death and autopsy
It had taken King Stanislas eighteen long days to die.
Immediately following his death, he was laid out on his bed, with his face and hands uncovered, surrounded by candles. Six canons from Lunéville sang prayers around the body. The doors to the apartment remained open and people were free to enter.
The following day, Monday 24th February, at six in the morning, the body was transported into the "chambre de la balustrade" (which room was this? I'm not sure). Here it was exposed on a lit de parade, again surrounded by candles. The clergy and Court officials were seated nearby with careful attention to rank: on the right was an armchair to accommodate the Cardinal de Choiseul-Beaupré, Stanislas's Grand Almoner, with stools for his confessor Father Louskina and the other palace chaplains; on the left were folding chairs for the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and principal officers of the Royal Household. Beyond the balustrade two altars had been set up, draped in black, where masses could be said. Six members of the regular clergy sang psalms continuously.
King Stanislas to Marie Leszczyńska, 3rd February 1766
[probably the last words he ever wrote in his own hand]
 |
| The death of Stanislas. From an illustration by Ksawery Pillati for the collection "Images of Polish princes and kings" (1888). [Wikimedia] |
On Wednesday 5th February 1766, at about half-past-seven in the morning, the aged Stanisłas Leszczyński, former King of Poland, now Duke of Lorraine, was alone in his chamber at Lunéville when he accidentally fell into the open fire and sustained serious burns. Despite the best endeavours of his doctors, he suffered terrible agonies and died eighteen days later. Both at the time and subsequently, there were rumours of negligence on the part of Stanislas's attendants. However, since there were no eye-witnesses, what happened can never be known with absolute certainty.
 |
| This photo and the those below are from Wikimedia, taken in 2011 |
This sad little building, just a stone's throw away from the Château in Lunéville, is the "Petit Château" or "Château de la Favorite", once the residence of Leopold's youngest son, Charles-Alexander. Like the palace itself, it is the work of the renowned 18th-century architect Germain Boffrand. In 1999 the property was sold off by the municipality, and, since that time, "it has not ceased to deteriorate" .
Since the devastating fire of 2003 at Lunéville, there has been a renewed academic interest not only in re-imagining but also in re-conceptualising the lost gardens of King Stanislas. This post summarises a lecture given at the Institut Européen des Jardins et Paysages in 2022 by Thierry Franz, director of the Musée du Château, which discusses some of the latest research.
[11: 35] A princely gardener of the Rococo era
 |
| Jean Pillement (?), Portrait of Stanislas in a crown of flowers, c.1760-70. Musée lorrain, Nancy. |
Stanislas's own first experiments in garden design date from around 1715 when he was installed by Charles XII of Sweden as ruler of the principality of Zweibrücken in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Here, with the aid of a Swedish architect Jonas Erikson Sundahl, he constructed the small summer residence generally known by its Turkish name Tschifflik. This building, which still survives today, has been extensively studied by the Polish scholar Jan Ostrowski. The design recalls the Turkish pavilions or "kiosks" which would have been familiar to Stanislas from exile in Bessarabia in 1709, but also shows contemporary Italianate influences.
A full understanding of Stanislas's building projects in Lorraine is hampered by a lack of documentary evidence. In contrast to the extensive archives of Leopold and Francis III, few records survive from the time of Stanislas. The loss of his building accounts is to be particularly regretted. However, thanks to newly published manuscript journal of Nicolas Durival, we now know that, scarcely three weeks after his arrival at Lunéville, when he was still moving into the apartments, the Polish king was already actively planning improvements to the park laid out by Leopold.
Thierry Franz's detailed discussion begins with some of the smaller properties which Stanislas embellished in the course of his reign. No trace survives of any of these gardens; they are now known only from the engravings published by Héré in his Recueil des plans of 1752-53, through contemporary accounts, or through paintings, a number of which were commissioned by Stanislas himself for his private apartments at Lunéville or the gallery at Einville.
La Malgrange
 |
| André Joly, Château de La Malgrange, seen from des Goulottes, Musée Lorrain, Nancy. Wikimedia The"Tableau Gillet" This picture, which is probably belonged to Stanislas, shows the building work as yet unfinished. |
 |
| The residences of King Stanislas - adapted from Google Maps |
Chanteheux
Stanislas rapidly settled into a fruitful and creative relationship with his architect Emmanuel Héré. In the years 1738 to 1741 the latter embarked on a whole series of projects for his royal master: the château at La Malgrange and the nearby church of Bonsecours (1738-41); the Trèfle (1738) and the Pavillon de la Cascade (1743) at Lunéville; and the Hôtel des Missions in Nancy (1741-43). It was in 1741 too that he began work at Chanteheux to the east of Les Bosquets on an ambitious new pavilion which was to be the Trianon of Stanislas's "Versailles lorrain".
[continued from previous post]
 Contemporary plan of the Bas Bosquets c.1750 |
| https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/memoire/IVR41_20165410760NUC2A |
 | ||
| Anonymous view the Bas Bosquets with the Chartreuses in the foreground. |
At Lunéville, Stanislas also inherited the Park of "Les Bosquets" to the rear of the palace, which he embellished and ultimately extended to cover some 30 hectares. The landscaping work under Leopold had been directed between 1711 and 1719 by Yves des Hours, a disciple of Le Nôtre, who set out a jardin à la française of classical design. The remains of the ancient town fortifications were used to provide the axis for the main terrace, with a series of formal parterres flanked by wooded walkways ("les bosquets"). The waters of the River Vezouze fed a new Grand Canal overlooked by three grassed and sloping paths. In 1724 Louis Gervais, future architect of the park at Schönbrunn, took over from Des Hours, bringing with him elements of more innovative, characteristically Rococo garden design (see Refs).
An ambitious hydraulic system had been put in place from 1710 by the engineer Didier Lalance. The Grand Canal formed the northern boundary of the Park whilst, to the east, a feeder canal channelled further water from a reservoir in the bois de Mondon, ten kilometres away. In 1731 a hydraulic machine or "tower" (designed by by PhilippeVaryinge (1684-1746) and built by Jacques Richard "fontainier du duc") was installed on the level of the grand canal, capable of elevating five jets of water to a height of sixty feet.
Under Stanislas the original layout of the formal gardens was retained with additional planting, fountains, water features and, in particular, further statuary. (Pierre Boyé comments: "A nature which was already constrained was tormented more."[Boyé (1910), p. 65]). The marshland which still surrounded the Grand Canal was reclaimed and and the Park extended to the north and east. It was in these peripheral areas that Stanislas was able to show his originality by siting splendid new garden structures.
What remains?
The restoration of the modern park, which is still ongoing, aims to reproduce the formal parterres and surrounding "bosquets" as they appeared during the reign of Duke Leopold, the time when the gardens are best documented.
