Tabletop with Map of France
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.In 1714 the Versailles visitor Reverend James Hume described a table in the Trianon (the royal retreat in the gardens): "on which is a curious map of France . . . of diverse coloured Marble." The inscription indicates that the impressive tabletop, representing each of the provinces of France in 1684, was offered to Louis XIV by Claude Antoine Couplet, professor at the Paris Académie des Sciences. Glorifying the Sun King for his successes on the battlefield, the map includes recently seized territories in the north and east.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tabletop with Map of France
- Manufactory: Probably Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins (French, established 1662)
- Designer: Design by Claude-Antoine Couplet (French)
- Artist: Lapidary work probably by Horace Megliorini
- Artist: Lapidary work probably by Ferdinand Megliorini
- Artist: Lapidary work probably by Philippe Branchi
- Artist: Lapidary work probably by Jean Ambrosio Gachetti
- Date: 1684
- Culture: French
- Medium: Hardstones, marble, alabaster
- Dimensions: Table top: 43 5/16 × 30 11/16 × 1 9/16 in. (110 × 78 × 4 cm)
From website: 35 1/4 × 43 3/8 × 30 13/16 in. (89.5 × 110.2 × 78.2 cm) - Classification: Stone-Furniture
- Credit Line: Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (V 3537), on long-term loan from the Musée du Louvre, Paris (OA 6632)
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts