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.
Thierry Franz, "Les jardins de Lunéville sous S. Leszczynski : de folies en fabriques, un testament philosophique?" Archives départementale du Calvados/Institut Européen des Jardins & Paysages, 01.03.2022. [YouTube video]
[11: 35] A princely gardener of the Rococo era
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| 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.
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| View of the Château de Jolivet, c. 1750. Private collection. [Image from Facebook] |
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| Château d'Einville-au-Jard, c.1750. Lunéville, musée du château - canvas destroyed in 2003. Reproduced in L'Est Républicain |
The second property is the ducal château at Einville-au-Jard, eight kilometres to north of Lunéville. The house, with its formal garden, had been constructed at the time of Léopold. However, Stanislas added the gallery in the background of the picture, originally conceived as an orangery, which was used for fêtes and nocturnal suppers. This informal dining pavilion, framed by garden galleries, was highly characteristic of Stanislas's Rococo style. The elaborately trellised walkways had the effect of making the living space appear to dissolve into the fabric of the surrounding garden. As Thierry Franz puts it, the result was a sort of "hybridisation" between the built and the vegetal.
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| André Joly, Château de La Malgrange, seen from the jardin des Goulottes, Musée Lorrain, Nancy. Wikimedia |
At La Malgrange, today in the suburbs of Nancy, Stanislas elected to demolish the existing buildings and construct with a free hand. The resultant assemblage of pavilions disconcerted visitors: Montesquieu, for instance, remarked that Stanislas had a taste for creating charming things that "did not resemble anything". The cour d'honneur was treated as a garden and the ensemble had no discernible single axis of symmetry.
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| La Malgrange from Héré's Recueil [Wikimedia] |
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| View of the Château de Commercy from the gardens, c. 1750 Nancy, Musée lorrain [Wikimedia] |
The final example is the château at Commercy, which was taken over eagarly by Stanislas on the death of the dowager duchess Charlotte-Elisabeth in 1744 and used as a summer villa de plaisance. Here there was little in the way of existing gardens, so Stanislas was able to lay out his grounds from scratch. A large area of land was drained and an elaborate hydraulic system installed. An ambitious Grand Canal formed the central axis to the park. Close to the château we again see elaborate parterres in the Rococo style.
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| View of the north parterre of the château de Commercy and the "kiosque à stores d'eau", about 1750, Lunéville, Musée du château, destroyed in 2003 |
Stanislas also able to indulge his taste for pavilions. The "Kiosk" at Commercy was particularly striking for its "stores", (partition walls), which were not made, not of of wood or textile, but of iron filigree over which water continually flowed - a fantasy of cool sparkling liquid to delight Stanislas's visitors in the summer months.
A painting from the château de Lunéville, sadly destroyed in 2003, shows Stanislas with his guests, capturing perfectly Stanislas's spirit of bonhomie and hospitality, and also his taste Rococo exuberance in colours and form.
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| Stanislas in the gardens at Commercy with his guests. Musée du château de Lunéville , destroyed in 2003 |
Thierry Franz goes on to describe some of the other features of this truly extraordinary park. At the foot of the château was the grotto with its spitting Cerberus, though this perhaps was more in the spirit of 16th-century Mannerism. Another hydraulic marvel was the "pont d'eau" a bridge across one of the branches of the canal where water once again ran continuously over metal tracery to create an illusion of liquid walls. The bridge was wide enough to allow the colonnades on either side to be covered with an awning and the space used for supper parties.
At the far end of the Grand Canal, which was a monumental 500 metres long, was the pleasure pavilion known as the Pavillon Royal or Château d'eau. The illustration in Héré's Recueil show a building which was Classical in design, but with decorative details which were were truly Rococo in inspiration. Since this is an architectural drawing, the sculptures may not be perfectly represented. However, the three great fountains certainly existed, as did the fantastical hydraulic columns. The extraordinary boats in the foreground seem like something out of a Surrealist painting, but contemporary witnesses confirm that these too were real, their oarsmen hidden from view. Stanislas would have been able to enjoy the spectacle from the terrace.
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| The Royal Pavilion at Commercy from Héré's Recueil (Wikimedia) |
[27:40:] Lunéville: novel pavilions
We now return to Lunéville, Stanislas's principal residence and the site of his most ambitious essays in landscape architecture. Here we see exemplified his particular contribution to the evolution of the Rococo garden, his predilection for pleasure pavilions or kiosks.
Stanislas preserved the plan of Leopold's park, Les Bosquets, which had been laid out on canonical classical French lines, but extended it to cover 30 hectares. The first area he developed was on the site of the private parterres of which had belonging to the apartments of Leopold and Elisabeth-Charlotte. Here is mention of a "comédie champêtre" here in 1739 with a hydraulic system to move to move the scenery - clearly a version of the "Théâtre d'eau" of Le Nôtre at Versailles.
Here too Stanislas's first pavilion, the so-called "Kiosque" was erected in 1738, very shortly after his arrival at Lunéville.
The design of this pavilion was always said by contemporaries to have been the brainchild of the King himself. Indeed, disagreement over the plans seems to have been behind the departure of Stanislas's initial architect Jennesson and his subsequent appointment of Héré .
(See Pierre Boyé, Revue lorraine illustrée vol. 3 (1906), p.186-7.
An engraving of the Kiosque from Héré's Recueil (above) shows very clearly the upturned roof characteristic of the pleasure pavilions and baths of Ottoman gardens.
However, the exact source of Stanislas's inspiration is not really known. Contemporaries were divided in their opinions. Voltaire described the pavilion as "half-Turkish, half-Chinese". On the other hand, Montesquieu, who seems to have been better informed, states that it was built not à la turque, but à la polonaise. Jan Ostrowski's research confirms this Polish influence: both the Kiosque and the earlier pavilion at Tschifflik in Zweibrücken, recall certain Polish manor houses, in their style of roof and their wooden construction.
The interior of Stanislas's pavilion was, however, absolutely French. The main building was occupied by a salon in the Italianate style typical of 17th-century France, with a balcony on the upper level for musicians. The total area was only 10 or 12 metres square, making for a small intimate space. The decor already presented a full repertoire of rococo features - notably the buffets d'eaux with their gold metal work, the stucco garlands of flowers and the signature shell motifs.
Stanislas's second pavilion, the Trèfle, again had an exotic theme, but this time the inspiration was overtly Chinese. It was built between 1738 and 1739 in an area to the north of the château, ten metres or so beyond the terrace and parterres, on an island at the head of the canal. In the early 1740s the site was also occupied by the "chartreuses", series of small mock cottages designed to offer courtiers a taste of the simple life.
Unlike the Kiosque, which was purely for dining, the Trèfle had provision for overnight guests - two alcove bedchambers, plus chambers and a bathroom, forming the lobes of the cloverleaf plan. It may be thought of as sort of Petit Trianon for Lunéville. The style recalled Chinese pagodas.
The construction, as illustrated in Héré's Recueil, was probably the model for Frederick's maison de thé at Sanssouci (below).
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| Pavillon de la cascade, viewed from the far end of the canal c.1750. Musée du château. |
A further addition to the main park was the Pavillon de la Cascade, built in 1744 to the east of the gardens with views over the canal. Here, once again, is a pure Rococo style, exemplified in the exaggerated and sinuous curves of the great "escalier d'eau" which gave the pavilion its name. The exterior boasted a significant assemblage of statuary - twenty or so figures and vases in gilded stone were reflected in the flowing waters; and the steps of the cascade were made out of shells encrusted with glasswork. The pavilion itself appeared Italianate in design, even Palladian, but the facade was a trompe-l'oeil, the marble colonnade a painted imitation. In this respect it resembled Louis XIV's château at Marly. The effect reflected not just Stanislas's limited means, but also his taste for illusion. The interior was also Italianate, almost Baroque, in style; the frescoes were among the first projects undertaken by the painter André Joly.
Finally, the tree-lined central avenue of the park was extended three kilometres east to the extraordinary pavilion or château of Chanteheux. Taking the form of a sort of step pyramid, this was an entirely original creation, "une architecture inédite".
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| Chanteheux from the entrance. Musée du Château de Lunéville [Images d'Art] |
According to Thierry Franz, Chanteheux was conceived for pleasure, above all for the pleasure of the mind, as a "temple of the arts" or a "Parnassus". Its role was thus fundamental to the philosophical values which Stanislas aimed to express through his gardens.
At this point Thierry Franz once again observes that we do have documentary evidence for the creative process behind Stanislas's building programme, in particular the respective contributions of the King and his architect Héré. It is to be hoped that future research will be able to shed further light on the subject.
[42:00] "Parcours initiatiques pour jardins de l'esprit"
Interpretations - Historiography of the gardens.
"Jardins de l'esprit"
In the final part of his lecture Thierry Franz reviews some recent interpretations of Stanislas's aims. The initial research on the châteaux and their gardens was carried out in the early years of the 20th century by the Lorraine historian Pierre Boyé, but little by way of further analysis appeared until recent times Following the fire of 2003, there has been a considerable renewal of academic interest
In 1998 Stéphanie Chapotot-Le Clerre, offered a new evaluation in a Masters thesis subsequently published as Les jardins du roi Stanislas en Lorraine. In her view, Stanislas played an essential role in the transition from the classical garden à la française to the English landscape garden. Moreover, a perambulation of the park at Lunéville could be read as a "parcours initiatique", whereby crossing the canal represented a sort of purification rite prior to arrival at the Chartreuses, the seat of philosophy (p.170).
A reinterpretation along similar lines is offered by Renata Tyszczuk, an architectural historian from the University of Sheffield. Professor Tyszczuk places Stanislas's landscape architecture is the context of his literary and philosophical works. Although he did not share the religious scepticism of the philosophes, Stanislas saw himself as a figure of the Enlightenment and theorised about the political ideal of the good ruler. The thought is that within the enchanted spaces of his gardens the exiled king sought not only to provide pleasant entertainment for his courtiers, but also to create an "asile du bonheur", an imaginary and philosophical realm in which his dreams of rule could be played out.
According to Thierry Franz, a philosophical reading of Stanislas's gardens is most convincing for Lunéville itself. Two separate levels of meaning can be identified, corresponding to the different areas of the Park.
First is the more "political" message of the Bas Bosquets, the area around the canal to the north of the château. It was here that the Chartreuses were sited, with the Trèfle at their head, which, according to some interpreters acted as a sort of lighthouse or perhaps, since it resembled a bell tower, even a church. The idea was to create a community where chosen courtiers could live out a fantasy of the simple life away from the corruptions of the Court. (Montesquieu had claimed that a monastery was the only place to discover a modern republic and had observed that the Carthusians were happy because their activities were animated by the great truths of life. [Pensées, 1675])
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| Les Chartreuses - detail of a painting of Lunéville from the gallery at Einville. Musée du château de Luneville (destroyed in 2003) https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/memoire/IVR41_20095410293NUC2A |
The cottages were given a deliberately modest appearance and Stanislas compelled his tenants, at least notionally, to cultivate their own gardens; he would come and dine with them at short notice in order to taste their produce. The idea was a perhaps a little naive, though role-playing of this kind was an established part of Court culture. The concept of a return to Nature is clearly comparable to Voltaire's Candide - and also anticipates the hameaux of the picturesque parks of the second half of the century. Following Renata Tyszczuk, we can also read the Chartreuses, isolated on their island, in terms of the values expressed in Stanislas's utopian essay, the Entretien d’un Européen avec un Insulaire du royaume de Dumocala, published in 1752.
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| The Rocher - detail of the painting from the gallery at Einville. https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/memoire/IVR41_20095410292NUC2A |
Close to the Chartreuses was the "merveille de Lunéville", the Rocher.
Here once again is an idealised vision of life in the countryside, which can be interpreted as carrying a political connotation. According Professor Tyszczuk the Rocher represented the well-ordered kingdom of Stanislas's utopian musings, its mechanical movement a metaphor for the harmonious workings of the ideal society. The spectators on the balcony were deliberately incorporated into the illusion, since the oversight of the King and his Courtiers was essential to the happiness of the ordinary subjects. A standard perambulation of the garden would end in the Bas Bosquets, with arrival at the Rocher immediately preceded by an inspection of the Chartreuses: "The two ideal villages or miniature kingdoms, the Rocher and the Chartreuses, delineate an experimental territory in the garden" (p.205)
The second area of interpretation centres on the central West-East axis of the park: the terrace, the formal gardens and, further on, the pavilion of Chanteheux. This vista is in a more elevated position, on a level with the palace and the Court apartments. Recent investigation has highlighted the significant sculptural embellishments made by Stanislas. A vignette from the Recueil of Héré (left) shows that the perspective of the parterres was once adorned with forty or more statues. The majority have long since been sold off or broken up, but, among the survivors are the lead figures designed by Barthélémy Guibal for the central fountain. These are now known to have been added by Stanislas in the 1740s.
The group depicts the poet Arion, who, according to myth, was rescued from drowning by dolphin sent from Apollo, who had been enchanted by his singing. The choice of subject is significant. In contrast to the iconography of the Apollo Fountain at Versailles, Stanislas's central figure is not a god but a poet. Arion is saved by the practice of his art; art is a form of redemption which allows one to escape from death and oblivion. The assemblage stood directly outside the King's windows and represents his more personal testament: Stanislas, who painted and played the flute, was an artist at heart.
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| Grand Salon at Chanteheux. Musée du Château de Lunéville [Images d'Art] |
From this perspective Chanteheux in the distance can be seen to have represented a kind of personal Parnassus, a paradise on earth. It was here that Stanislas practised his painting. The ground floor was dark, almost a grotto. But upstairs, the first floor was bathed in sunlight. It was in this grand Italianate salon with its twenty-four windows and decorative crystal chandeliers, that Stanislas held his supper parties. Thus architecture stood as a metaphor for the idea of illumination, of Enlightenment made tangible.
Authorities referred to:
Monique Mosser, "Jardins rocaille en France" in À l’ombre des frondaisons d’Arcueil, (Exhibition catalogue 2016), p.19–30. English summary: https://grham.hypotheses.org/2505#_ftn1
Jan K. Ostrowski,"Tschifflik, la maison de plaisance du roi Stanislas à Deux-Ponts ", Dix-huitième siècle,
No. 4 (1972) p. 315-322
Stéphanie Chapotot-Le Clerre, Les jardins du roi Stanislas en Lorraine (1999).
______ "Les Jardins de Stanislas", Stanislas: Un roi de Pologne en Lorraine, ed. Martine Mathias (2004), p.p.165-179. [Not consulted]
Renata Tyszczuk, The story of an architect king: Stanislas Leszczynski in Lorraine 1737-1766 (2007) [Extract on Google Books]
_____, "L’utopie architecturale du «roi bienfaisant» In : Utopies des lumières Lyon : ENS Éditions, 2010, p.77-106 [Open Access]. http://books.openedition.org/enseditions/4305
_______, The automated gardens of Lunéville: from the self-moving landscape to the circuit walk, Architecture and Movement, ed. Peter Blundell Jones, Mark Meagher (2015) [extract]
Images:
Views of Stanislas's châteaux from the Grand Cabinet at Lunéville
Made available for the 2020 exhibition at Ferney, "Parcs des Lumières, Voltaire en ses terres". Published on Facebook by 2J2D l'AGENCE.
Stanislas's "Grand Cabinet" was the final room in the enfilade of private apartments, with two windows onto the gardens. A large numbers of paintings were displayed here, among which are inventoried a series of thirteen canvasses representing view of the King's houses. The canvasses were once owned by Léonard Bourcier de Monthureux, procureur général of the Sovereign Court of Lorraine in Nancy. Now in a private collection.
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