Patrons and donations
The Centre’s patrons and donors (foundations, institutions, public and private companies) offer financial support or support in kind, to the Public Interest Group Centre de recherche du château de Versailles. This support can be ongoing, linked to the general functioning of the Centre, or one-off, relating to specific projects.
Bequests to the Centre are made by private individuals. They bequeath part of their assets to the Group in order to support its activities.
Patrons of the Centre
Guerlain is one of the oldest French perfume houses. It was created in the rue de Rivoli in Paris in 1828 by Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain, whose motto was: “Glory is ephemeral, only distinction lasts.” For over one hundred and fifty years it remained the property of the Guerlain family. Since it was bought in 1994, Guerlain has become a brand of the Parfums et Cosmétiques branch of the LVMH group.
Guerlain is a scientific partner of the CRCV as part of a collaboration on the perfumers of the court and in financing the thesis of Alice Camus “The privileged perfumers, suppliers of the court of Versailles (17th-18th centuries)” (CIFRE contract, 2018-2021), who is welcomed into the CRCV.
A graduate of the ISIPCA perfumery school of Versailles, Francis Kurkdjian started his career by creating Le Mâle for Jean-Paul Gaultier, in 1995. Since then he has created many perfumes for internationally famous houses such as Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Guerlain, Lancôme, Lanvin, Nina Ricci, Kenzo, Giorgio Armani, Christian Lacroix, Burberry, etc. In 2001, he set up his workshop for bespoke perfume, and that same year was awarded the François Coty prize in recognition of his life’s work. In 2009, along with his associate Marc Chaya, he co-founded his own perfume house, Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
Passionate, determined and devoted to perfumery for thirty years, Francis Kurkdjian always sought to shake up the industry, to release it from its bottle, to unlock doors and take it into new areas. It was in this spirit that he produced a number of olfactory installations, particularly at the Palace of Versailles. Thus, in 2006, he enhanced the pool in the Orangerie with an orange blossom fragrance, shot into the air by the pool’s fountain and diffused all across the park. In 2008, in the bosquet of the Ballroom, he presented an installation of six hundred perfumed candles.
Passionate about the history of perfumery, Francis Kurkdjian is particularly interested in its development under the Ancien Régime, a crucial period in the development of the profession of perfumer. He therefore approached the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles and financed the research project “Being a Perfumer at Versailles, from Louis XIV to Louis XVI” in 2017.
Founded in 1981, Paris College of Art (PCA) is a private university in Paris, France. The university is a US degree granting institution of higher learning and is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). PCA’s mission is to provide the highest standard of art and design education, taught within an American pedagogical paradigm, while being influenced and informed by French and European environment. The international faculty is comprised of 100 leaders in the art, design, and business industries in Europe and courses are taught in English. PCA offers an interdisciplinary education for 300 full-time students coming from 50 different countries, and awards Bachelor’s degrees in: Accessories Design; Art History, Theory & Criticism; Communication Design; Design Management; Fashion Design; Film / Video; Fine Arts; Illustration; Industrial Design; Interior Design; and Photography. The university also offers study abroad, certificate, summer, and university preparation programs.
Paris College of Art globaly supported the activities of the Research Centre from 2011 to 2013.
The French Heritage Society supported the activities of the Research Centre from the international research seminar (years 2011 and 2012)
The Centre’s donors and legators
- Donation Séré:
Daniel Séré (1940-2022) is a historian and author of a doctoral thesis in history entitled La paix des Pyrénées (7 novembre 1659) : la paix, fonction royale, dans les négociations entre la France et l’Espagne (1635-1659), which he defended in 2004 at Paris-Sorbonne (Lettres Sorbonne université) under the direction of Yves-Marie Bercé.
The thesis was published in 2007 under the title La paix des Pyrénées : vingt-quatre ans de négociations entre la France et l’Espagne, 1635-1659 (Paris, H. Champion). His article Mazarin et la “comédie de Lyon” : au-delà de la légende has also been published, in the revue Dix-septième siècle (vol. 231, no. 2, 2006, p. 327-340).
In 2023, Mme Marie-Geneviève Séré generously donated around fifty works from her library to the CRCV, the majority of which are monographs and works specialising in politics and diplomacy from Henri IV to Louis XIV, Mazarin and Richelieu.
- Donation Grell:
Chantal Grell, professor of modern history at the université Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, donated to the CRCV , in 2023, a series of dissertations, theses and post doctoral degrees whose research she has either supervised or assessed. These documents constitute a private archive and access to them is limited.
- Donation Bottineau:
Yves Bottineau, university professor, art historian and palaeographic archivist, trained at the Sorbonne, the École des Chartes, the École des hautes études at the Casa Vélasquez in Madrid, a graduate of the École du Louvre, and doctor of philosophy, died in January 2008.
A great French specialist in the civilisation of the Iberian Peninsula, he wrote many books on the art, painting, architecture and history of Spain, Portugal and Latin America, and of France in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In 1986, succeeding Pierre Lemoine, he became Inspector General of museums, responsible for the Palaces of Versailles and the Trianon until 1989, the year in which he published Versailles, miroir des princes.
In 2013, Mme Bottineau made an initial gift to the CRCV of around 900 books from her library. These were mainly monographs written in Spanish and Portuguese on the particular areas and periods of interest to her: history, history of art, painting, sculpture, architecture, town planning, gold and silver working. There were also exhibition catalogues, guidebooks and periodicals.
In 2015, on the death of Mme Bottineau, her three children, Gilles Bottineau, Lionel Bottineau and Anne Bottineau Queyrel, made a second gift of over 1,500 books, on the same subjects but with more works in French and on Versailles, in addition to many offprints and periodicals. Along with this generous donation, 650 documentary files have been handed over to the CRCV, grouping specialised information on specific themes, made up of newspaper articles, slides and grey literature (mainly manuscripts: research works, memoires, courses, articles, etc.).
In the CRCV library, this collection is currently the subject of a specific, non-thematic plan of classification. A large majority of the collection is now available on the CRCV’s internal computerised catalogue.
Integrating the books into the CCBMN database will enable researchers and students to have access to this collection via the search engine, which allows multi-criteria queries on the website.
As for the CRCV library, access and consultation of the Bottineau collection takes place on site and by appointment.
- Legacy Lemoine:
Pierre Lemoine, Inspector General of the musées de France, heritage curator, died in August 2006.
He joined Versailles in 1964 as a curator specialising in the 18th century. Appointed general curator of the National Museum of Versailles and the Trianon in 1980, succeeding Gérald Van der Kemp in this role, he was director of the establishment until he retired in 1986.
Pierre Lemoine’s influence at Versailles was marked by major achievements. Versailles owes him: the organisation of exhibitions, especially « Louis XV, un moment de perfection de l’art français » in the hôtel de la Monnaie in 1974-1975, the rehanging of the 17th century rooms, the restoration of the princes’ apartments on the ground floor, and above all, the construction of the Gabriel staircase, designed in its time by Louis XV’s architect, but never built. In addition, a well-informed music lover and a pianist himself, he was behind the revival of baroque music at Versailles, and his guidebook to Versailles and the Trianons, “the Lemoine”, updated in 2017 by the palace curators, remains a reference work.
Outside Versailles, Pierre Lemoine along with François Furet, set up the fondation Saint-Simon.
On his death, and in accordance with his wishes, his large personal library was divided between his family, close friends and several establishments that shared his preferred subjects.
This bequest consists of 221 books chosen by the CRCV. Some of these are on generic subjects (history, history of art) and biographies. Others are linked to Pierre Lemoine’s passions: Versailles, music, exhibition catalogues.
