2023-06-21 21:03:06
The carpets of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre. National Furniture, Isabelle Bideau
STORY – Ordered to cover the Grande Galerie du Louvre, they were never deployed there. The State wants to enhance the 41 it owns.
A few large rugs are spread out on the floor, and National Furniture agents in socks are trying to suck up the dust that has become embedded in the weft. The scene could be domestic, if the carpets in question were not royal objects, dating from the 17th century.
At the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV, 92 oversized carpets were woven by the Manufacture de la Savonnerie to cover the 442 meters of the Grande Galerie du Louvre. The preparatory drawings were drawn up by Charles Le Brun, first painter to the king. The complex and colorful decorations on a brown background, edged with golden ovals bear witness to this.
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From 1668, the Savonnerie stuck to the task, with looms 9 meters long, used by twenty people at a time. “The technique then used for weaving is the knotted stitch, which makes it possible to obtain a velvet effect, and to play with the light”explain Antonin Macé de Lépinay and Emmanuelle Federspiel, heritage curators, their eyes shining in front of these carpets which…
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