AUGUSTE ALEXANDRE GUILLAUMOT (1815-1892)
A FANTASTIA: THE SALLE DES GARDES, CHÂTEAU DE MARLY
Signed & inscribed l.r. A. GUILLAUMOT / MARLY
Watercolour heightened with white
33.5 x 21 cm | 13.2 x 8.3 in
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Auguste-Alexandre Guillaumot, Château de Marly-le-Roi construit en 1676, détruit en 1798, dessiné et gravé d'après les documents puisés à la bibliothèque impériale et aux archives, Paris (1865);
B. Bentz, 'Auguste Guillaumot et la redécouverte du château de Marly', in Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, 2015;
H. Queval, 'Reconstituer Marly: La genèse de la monographie d'Auguste-Alexandre Guillaumot (1815-1892)', Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, 2018
The Château de Marly was a former royal palace of Louis XIV, developed to the West of the much grander Palais de Versailles. It functioned as a less formal and more intimate alternative to the Palace, with courtiers clamouring for a prized invitation to stay in one of its twelve ornate pavilions. Despite its beauty, by the early 19th century, the Château lay in ruins, deserted and overgrown, a forgotten remnant of a bygone age already.
The author of our painting, Auguste Guillaumot, is largely responsible for the Château’s rediscovery and for bringing its former architectural wonders back to life in illustrations. Guillaumot was an architectural draughtsman and engraver, who came from a family of artists and had studied under Augustin-François Lemaître. He enjoyed a long and successful academic career, showing regularly at the Salon des Artistes and winning various prizes. His chief legacy and his abiding passion for much of his career lay not in Paris but at Marly, and he moved to the nearby village that had been built to support the Château to support his endeavours.
In 1857, Guillaumot published a monograph on the Château and its history, which was accompanied by a view he exhibited that year of the grand watering pool at the Cháteau. The book led to the Commission des monuments historiques reclassifying the site and protecting it, and with this momentum came Guillaumot’s second, larger book on the subject (published in 1865). This featured numerous illustrations, which were then added to in the second edition (1876). A number of the drawings relating to these books are kept in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. A print published in 1869 depicts the same building as in our work, the Salle des Gardes (see fig. below right).
Our work is a rare instance of the artist allowing his imagination to run free and insert a colourful array of 18th century courtiers into the scene. A comparable example, slightly less finished than ours and one which remained in the artist’s own collection, was recently sold by Galerie Alexis Bordes, Paris.