Baroque Palaces

The mid-17th century saw the start of a 100-year-long surge of palace-building unmatched before or since. All over Europe, absolutist regimes, from Russia to Portugal, built or renovated palaces as their main centres of power, while lesser rulers and noblemen set out to match them in their great houses.

These Baroque creations, with their seemingly endless sequences of dazzling rooms and vast formal gardens, have established for us what a palace should be. The château of Versailles, near Paris, France, was the most famous and influential of them all. Its huge buildings and their landscape settings were entirely planned to glorify Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715) and to accommodate the ceremony that revolved around him. A personal embodiment of the nation, the King lived his whole life in public.

Rulers across Europe took note and soon began to emulate Versailles and the other French royal palaces, first in northern Europe and Scandinavia and later, after 1700, in central, eastern and southern Europe.

Staircases

Baroque palace staircases carried unmistakeable messages of power and conquest. With their impressive architectural design and powerful symbolic decoration, they made a huge initial impact on any visitor entering the state apartment. The most famous example was the Staircase of the Ambassadors at Versailles. It introduced a programme of painted decorations that was carried through to the state apartment, delivering the same clear message of dominance and control. The scale and design of the Versailles staircase inspired many others across Europe, including the palaces at Caserta in Italy, Würzburg in Germany and the Royal Palace at Stockholm in Sweden.

Galleries

In some of the greatest Baroque palaces the gallery was the principal room, serving as the supreme symbol of the owner's dynastic, political and cultural aspirations. It had this position because it was largest room, and because it was not part of any particular person's apartment. The most famous example was the Galerie des Glaces or Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, completed in 1684. On one side great French windows overlooked the gardens. They were reflected on the opposite wall by mirrored recesses of equal size - a stupendous and extremely expensive innovation. The painted ceiling glorified the King.

Galleries were multi-purpose spaces. They became the obvious setting for displays of art; the permanent furnishings were few but impressive. At Versailles the whole court assembled in the Galerie des Glaces every day to see the King pass through to the chapel. The Galerie could also be dressed up as setting for the great silver throne.

Throne rooms & audience chambers

All palaces and great houses were divided into apartments, meaning suites of rooms for particular individuals. The most important, the state apartment, was the main stage for the daily ceremonies of court life. Every aspect of its design was linked to a carefully modulated system of etiquette. The interconnected rooms in an apartment were arranged in line (en enfilade), and a visitor's rank was indicated by how far he could get: for the ruler to advance towards the guest was a huge honour. Most apartments began with a hall for the guards and concluded with a state bedchamber and a closet, with other more private rooms beyond. In between, there were antechambers used for eating and rooms for holding audiences. In France the bedchamber was the centre of the royal presence, but elsewhere the audience chamber took that role. The throne or great chair stood under a canopy of state - it was as much a symbol of royal power as a chair to sit on.

Dining

In the Baroque palace the ruler ate ceremonially in public attended by the court. Eating was a movable occasion, although larger meals usually took place in a special room near the start of the apartment. At Versailles, Louis XIV ate supper, in public, in his bedchamber. For special occasions the ancient tradition of public feasting continued. The tables were decorated with elaborate sculptures in folded linen or cast sugar, and the buffet was piled high with huge silver dishes and vessels. Every detail proclaimed the power and wealth of the host. Developing concepts of civility and decorum, and the introduction by the French court of new types of food and service, prompted the invention of new forms of tableware: soup tureens, wine coolers, salad and fruit dishes, condiment sets, sauce boats and matching sets of knife, fork and spoon. Adaptable centrepieces were used for the service of multi-course meals à la française.

Bedchambers

The bedchamber that terminated the apartment was the most richly furnished room of the Baroque palace. State bedchambers were often just symbolic of the royal presence, the ruler sleeping elsewhere. At Versailles, Louis XIV's actual sleeping chamber was the setting for elaborate court ceremonies, including the daily rising and going to bed (the lever and coucher), as well as special public occasions. The state bed was the most expensive piece of furniture in the building. Following a custom that began in France, it was given a throne-like setting, raised on a platform and placed in an alcove behind a balustrade. The silver equipment and upholstered furniture in the Baroque bedchamber were marks of highest status. For women, the daily ceremony of toilette prompted the creation of dressing tables with elaborate mirrors and silver dressing sets. French-style bedchambers and furnishings were adopted all over Europe, though not all courts used their bedchambers in the French manner.

Cabinets & closets

The rooms beyond the bedchamber were open only to the select few. Into the inner sanctum of the dressing room and closet was packed a level of furnishing and luxury unseen outside. The exclusivity of these rooms and their relative lack of ceremonial function also made them the setting for influential innovations in furniture and interior decoration. Closets pioneered walls of mirror and lacquer as well as decorations in the new light style of grotesque ornament that came into fashion at the end of the 17th century. As well as containing cabinets on stands, they also introduced types of furniture still with us today, including desks and upholstered sofas and easy chairs. The display of collections was a natural role for closets and other rooms beyond the bedchamber. In central Europe, china rooms became glittering treasure boxes, as much a display of mirrorwork and inlay as they were of porcelain.

---

This content was originally written in association with the exhibition 'Baroque 1620 - 1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence', on display at the V&A South Kensington from 4 April - 19 July 2009.