From Mme du Barry to Marie-Antoinette
The records of the “Garde-Meuble” the department responsible for the furniture, show that in 1772 a fine sculptured bed was delivered to the Petit Trianon for Madame du Barry. Like the rest of the furniture, it was painted white and not gilded.
Six years after his first dinner at the Petit Trianon, Louis XV was staying there with Mme du Barry when he fell ill. His surgeon insisted he return to Versailles. He had smallpox and it became clear he would not survive. He sent Mme du Barry to stay with a friend and died a few days later. Within days of Louis XV’s death, his successor Louis XVI exiled Mme du Barry. She was sent to a convent 60 kilometers away. Her Versailles days were over.
Louis XVI decided to give the Petit Trianon to Marie-Antoinette. He had a jeweller make a master key to the domain which was garnished with 531 diamonds.
Marie-Antoinette made it very much a private home. She dressed simply and enjoyed the freedom from the royal protocol.
She kept the furniture which had been left by Madame du Barry for 13 years. After three years she gilded the white woodwork on the bed. She also replaced the fabric but chose something very similar—white silk with multi coloured flowers (Mme du Barry had branches and Marie-Antoinette had birds).
Two years before the Revolution she ordered the new furniture for the bedroom which is now there.
Flowers had always been the decorative theme of the Petit Trianon. Painted ribbon tied bundles of wheat, with branches of ivy and jasmine and lily of the valley decorate the sculptured wood of the furniture.
The new fabric was specially ordered from Lyon and features cornflowers and roses.
Like all the furniture at Versailles it disappeared with the French Revolution. There is however a happy ending with Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom at the Petit Trianon. Just as the original bed cover from the Queen’s state apartment in the chateau was returned, a substantial amount of the furniture from Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom at the Petit Trianon has returned to Versailles including the fire screen and four of the chairs.
The bed was recreated with the identical fabric.
Desfarges, the silk manufacturer from Lyon, delivered the fabric for both the Queen’s official bed chamber in the Chateau and this bedroom in the Petit Trianon two years before the French Revolution.
Marie-Antoinette replaced Louis XV’s staircase and coffee room next to the bedroom with a state of the art boudoir.
