The Hall of Mirrors (French: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hall and its adjoining salons was intended to illustrate the power of the absolutist monarch Louis XIV. Located on the first floor (piano nobile) of the palace's central body, it faces west towards the palace gardens. The Hall of Mirrors has been the scene of events of great historic significance, including the Proclamation of the German Empire and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Cultural and historical background
Construction
In 1623, King Louis XIII ordered the construction of a modest two-story hunting lodge at Versailles, which he enlarged to a château from 1631 to 1634. His son Louis XIV declared the site his future permanent residence in 1661 and ordered the transformation into an extensive residence in several stages and on a grandiose scale. The palace was to provide ideal settings for rest and retreat but it also had to attain a new quality of representation as the future seat of Europe's greatest absolutist royal court and government of supreme authority, residence of choice for the aristocratic society and arena for elaborate state festivals and ceremonies, Europe's centre of culture, art and entertainment. During the early expansion phase, Louis Le Vau added the Forecourt (1662) and the "Le Vau Envelope" (1668 to 1670), encased the old château and added two new wings in the north and south. The new wings towered over the original western building by the garden. The space in between was a terrace supported by arcades. The buildings of the "Le Vau Envelope" included the king's apartments in the north and the queen's apartments in the south. The Hall of Mirrors was built during the third building stage between 1678 and 1684 and replaced a large terrace and several smaller salons facing the gardens. The terrace was originally situated directly outside of the King's and the Queen's apartments. The terrace was considered to be a rather misplaced architectural element and exposed to the elements, reducing its utility. Eventually it was decided to demolish it. Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart was tasked with the design development and the construction of the Mirror Hall Gallery. Artist Charles Le Brun received the honor to create the interior decorative apparatus. The garden façade of the Corps de logis was built in a straight front and essentially received its current appearance. The Hall of Mirrors is flanked at the far ends by the Salon of War (Salon de la guerre) in the north and the Salon of Peace (Salon de la paix) in the south, respectively. The Hall of Mirrors connects to the two salons, which were assigned to and incorporated into the king's apartments in the north and the queen's apartments in the south. Both salons are accessible via the Hall of Mirrors through wide opening passageways. The hall and the two salons were identically furnished and decorated and form a stylistic and functional unit. The exterior walls of the salons date from the time of Le Vau's encasings of the old château and were given their current appearance after the installation of the Hall of Mirrors by Hardouin-Mansart. The Hall of Mirrors is—besides the Palace Chapel, completed in the early 18th century, the Court Opera and the Galerie des Batailles—one of the largest rooms in the palace. It is 73 m (240 ft) long and 10.50 m (34.4 ft) deep. With its height of 12.30 m (40.4 ft) it reaches to the Attic floor of the Corps de Logis. The square windows on the upper floor, which can be seen from the outside, only serve aesthetic purposes, as there are no rooms inside. The installation of any kind of fireplaces was never contemplated as the Hall of Mirrors was too large to effectively be heated.
Arts and decoration
The Hall of Mirrors' 17 windows open in the direction of the park. On the opposite inside wall of the hall are 17 equally large mirrors, that are composed of more than 350 individual mirror surfaces. The mirrors had an aesthetic function, as the mirror image of the garden depicted the exterior of the castle into the interior of the building and reflected the candlelight in the evening. The mirrors also conveyed the king's wealth and the efficiency of the French economy in a subtle way. Mirror glass was an expensive luxury product in the 17th century and could only be produced with great effort. The manufacture of the mirror surfaces was the first major order for the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, a glass factory founded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the later Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, with which the Venetian monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors in Europe was broken. Much of the original solid silver furniture of the Hall of Mirrors, famous at the time, was soon lost, particularly the silver Guéridons (tables), which were melted down and coined by order of Louis XIV in 1689 to finance the War of the League of Augsburg. Today's furniture was manufactured in the 19th century after most of the original furnishings were lost during the French Revolution.
Sculptures The gilded bronze capitals of the Rouge de Rance marble pilasters are decorated with the Fleur-de-lis and Gallic roosters. The gilded bronze trophies, that adorn the green marble Pier glasses, were manufactured by goldsmith Pierre Ladoyreau. The marble and porphyry busts of eight Roman emperors are accompanied by sculptures of Greek and Roman deities and Muses, such as Bacchus, Venus (Venus of Arles), Modesty, Hermes, Urania, Nemesis and Diana (Diana of Versailles). The latter, moved to the Louvre in 1798, was replaced by a Diana sculpted by René Frémin for the gardens of the Château de Marly until the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors during 2004 to 2007, which in turn was replaced by a copy of the original Diana.
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