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Nighttime Festivities with Fireworks in the Gardens of the Petit Trianon

Hubert Robert French

Not on view

Robert’s painting, perhaps made to decorate the queen’s apartments at the Petit Trianon, shows crowds of people assembled around the Temple of Love to observe a fireworks display staged for Paul and Maria Feodorovna of Russia in 1782. Other nocturnal illumination events, such as those arranged for Emperor Joseph II in 1781 and for King Gustav III of Sweden in 1784, involved lighting fires in earthenware pots and placing them around the buildings, an effect that Gustav described as a "perfect enchantment."

Nighttime Festivities with Fireworks in the Gardens of the Petit Trianon, Hubert Robert (French, Paris 1733–1808 Paris), Oil on canvas

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© RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY, photo by Mathieu Rabeau