MAINE duchesse du (EN)

The Duchesse du Maine, Princess and Patron

Granddaughter of the “Grand Condé”, Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon became the Duchesse de Maine in 1692 upon her marriage with her cousin Louis-Auguste de Bourbon (1670-1736), a legitimised prince that was born of the love affair between Louis XIV and the Marquise de Montespan. After living in an apartment in Versailles, she moved, shortly after 1700, to the Château de Sceaux, which the Duc de Maine had bought from the heirs of the Marquis de Seignelay, Colbert's eldest son. Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon ordered a new decor for Sceaux from the most renowned artists of the time, such as Claude III Audran (1658-1734). In 1704, Audran had composed the woodwork for a room in the Princess’s apartment with the theme of the arts and sciences (Brême D., Cessac C., 2019). As an educated princess, she was introduced to science by Nicolas de Malézieu (1650-1727), most importantly to the study of astronomy. She nurtured a lively passion for the art of theatre and was a patron of actors, composers and playwrights. Known as "Ludovise", the Princess surrounded herself with a large group of courtiers, dedicated to the organisation of sumptuous events including theatre, music and dance productions. The theatre on the second floor of the Château de Sceaux was the Princess’s stage on which to enact comedies or tragedies for her courtiers. Her personal theatre troupe was known to travel to Châtenay, Malézieu and the other residences of the Maine family. They even performed in Clagny and Château d'Anet, where Voltaire unveiled one of his first plays, Le Comte de Boursoufle, in 1747.

The Maine family’s lifestyle slowed considerably after the death of Louis XIV and due to the conspiracy of Cellamare against the regent Philippe d'Orléans, in which Louise-Bénédicte was its main instigator. After a year of forced exile, the Duchesse de Maine formed a new court, which is considered the harbinger of the 18^th Century literary salons. A proud and a royal Princess, she largely dominated her husband, and forced him to acquire new land near the Parc de Sceaux to build the Menagerie garden, on which the architect Jacques de La Guêpière (d. 1734) designed a small domed pavilion in 1721. At the same time, the Duchesse de Maine acquired a private mansion on the rue de Bourbon (now rue de Lille) in Paris called "du Maine". In addition, the Princess rented the Hôtel Biron (now the Rodin Museum) on the rue de Varenne, where she spent much of her time after the death of the Duc de Maine, and where she eventually died in 1753.

Throughout her life, the Duchesse de Maine continued to buy furniture and ceramics to furnish her various residences, much of which was for the Château de Sceaux that she retained until her death, as well as for the Hôtel du Maine that she furnished in the style of a Royal palace. As a connoisseur of “chinoiseries”, Asian art occupied an important place in the acquisitions of the Princess who accumulated many pieces from China and Japan. After the extinction of the line of the House of Maine upon the death of the Comte d'Eu (1701-1775), the couple’s last son, the property of Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon passed to her nephew, the Duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793). The main example of the Duchesse de Maine’s lifestyle and her collections disappeared after the confiscation of the domain of Sceaux (1793) and the demolition of her castle (circa 1803) (Meyenbourg M., Rousset-Charny G., 2007, p. 19-23). Today, the conservation of lacquer panels in the Chinese cabinet of the Hôtel de Pontalba (Paris, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré) commissioned by the Princess for the Hôtel du Maine (destroyed in 1838), allow us to measure the role she played in propagating the Far East style in France during the first half of the 18th Century.

Tapestries with Chinese Themes

The Duchesse de Maine was not very interested in painting, apart from family portraits or paintings depicting events of the court at Sceaux, which she commissioned from François de Troy (1645-1730) and Pierre Gobert (1662-1744). She had a stronger interest in small decorative statuary both in bronze or marble, often portraying mythological themes. After her death, her inventory (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753) also included 78 pieces of tapestry. In this collection, which probably includes pieces she inherited, is the remarkable “History of the Emperor of China”, woven of wool and silk at the Beauvais manufactory and adorned with gold and silver thread. Commissioned after the visit of the Ambassador of Siam in 1684 and perhaps given to the Duc and Duchesse de Maine at the time of their marriage, it is a testament to their interest in the Far East. The Princess hung part of this tapestry in the room she occupied in Sceaux and the other in that of her private mansion on the rue de Bourbon (AN, MC/ET/VIII/1015, June 4, 1736, n ° 26, 850), before transporting part of it to the Hôtel Biron (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753, n° 113).

Porcelain from China and Japan

The Duc de Maine ordered a few trays in wood and Chinese lacquer. At least one of these objects, entirely made in China, bears the arms of the Prince (MDDS, n. inv. 2008.6.1). The Duchess of Maine was much more active and collected many Asian objects and furniture that she displayed throughout the rooms of her apartments. The inventory after her death confirmed a particular taste for Chinese and Japanese porcelain, of which there are more than 1,200 pieces. Her taste was not evidently exclusively for Asia, as the Princess additionally owned a large number of porcelain from Saxony and Chantilly as well as several pieces from Saint-Cloud. She was a great lover of ceramics and patronised the Sceaux ceramics manufactory that supplied her with tableware as well as enamelled and painted figurines. She also combined different pieces from various origins, such as the “two square porcelain bottles from China, repainted in Holland, each with a bouquet of porcelain flowers from Saxony” (AN, MC/ET/XXXV /673, February 19, 1753, No. 1919 (Seals).

We know from the intendant of the Maine family, Pierre-Jacques Brillon (1671-1736), that the Duchesse de Maine "purchased" Asian porcelain from La Compagnie des Indes (BIF, MS 385, Feb. 20, 1723, p. 208). Her posthumous inventory also mentioned objects, sometimes mounted in bronze or plated in silver or vermeil, related to daily life (tobacco jars, basins, buckets, bowls, bowls, ewers) or tableware (terrines, plates, dishes, bottles). The inventory also mentioned several "red lacquered" trays, Japanese lacquered cabinets, accompanied by nécessaire en porcelaine (teapots, goblets, cups, saucers, sugar canisters, etc.), as well as several precious objects like potpourris and perfume fountains (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753, n° 432, 482, 485 (Hôtel Biron). Only one of the four perfume fountains of the Duchesse de Maine still exists, made in " celestial blue porcelain strewn with rosettes on a red porcelain foot and mounted in gilt bronze" (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753, n° 620 (Hôtel Biron); MDDS n. inv. 2014.7.1). The Princess also collected purely decorative chinoiserie, including the grotesque figurines known as magots and small pagodas (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, 19 February 1753, n° 1893 (Sceaux, Pavillon de la Ménagerie), n° 2353 (Anet).

Lacquered Furniture and Panels

The Duchesse de Maine decorated two Chinese cabinet rooms, one in Sceaux and the other in Paris, in her Parisian mansion, rue de Bourbon. At Sceaux, the room was sumptuously furnished and lined with mirrors and "richly decorated with many Chinese magots and figurines" (Gaignat de l'Aulnays C.-F., 1778, p. 40). The mistress of the house had arranged "a three-seater canapé, two armchairs, two chairs and four stools [...] covered with gold fabric from Constantinople and Chinese figures", "a varnished Chinese writing table" and "a small Regency chest of drawers in Coromandel wood" (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753, n° 1415, 1419, 1420 (Sceaux), which is the only surviving piece from this sumptuous decor. This chest of drawers from Sceaux is highlighted with gilded bronze sculpting and has the particularity of being entirely decorated with lacquer panels from a screen imported from China and originating from the coasts of Coromandel, India. It is attributed to cabinetmaker Bernard II Van Risamburgh (c. 1700-1760), designer of the most exceptional pieces of furniture during the reign of Louis XV, which attests to the high quality of this unique piece (MDDS, inv. no. 2005.14.1).

In 1722, the Duchess de Maine acquired "three screens composed of 18 panels" (BIF, MS 382, ​​February 21, 1722, p. 287, 294; February 22, 1722, p. 656), for the panelling of the China cabinet in the rue de Bourbon hotel, and then asked the varnisher Justin Moyrin to complete the set with French lacquer and frame them with sculpted gilt borders (Tillerot I., 2018, p. 89- 120). Considered “of the latest in magnificence" (Antonini A., 1734, p. 84), this expensive decor is now found in a salon of the Hôtel de Pontalba, in Paris, the current residence of the American Ambassador (Leben U. and McDonald Parker R., 2007, p. 26-29). At the end of her life, the Princess created the ultimate Chinese salon in a room at the Hôtel Biron. She organised a cabinet "in old Japanese lacquer", two square tables and a writing table, each "in Chinese varnish", a small pedestal table "in Japanese varnish" as well as various porcelain objects (AN, MC/ET/XXXV/673, February 19, 1753, n° 520-541), as a testimonial to the style she so adored.