La laiterie de Marie-Antoinette à Rambouillet

Antoine Maës, La laiterie de Marie-Antoinette à Rambouillet. Un temple pastoral pour le plaisir de la reine, Montreuil: Éditions Gourcuff Gradenigo, March 2016, 112 p., 90 ill., 16,5 x 24 cm, €17 (ISBN: 978-2-35340-234-2).

Abstract

In 1785 Louis XVI decided to create a dairy in Rambouillet, where his wife could enjoy the dairy produce, as at Trianon where a fantasy hamlet had recently been built for the queen. Built in the classical style, under the artistic direction of Hubert Robert, the Rambouillet dairy looked like a true “temple of milk”. This place, intended for Marie-Antoinette’s pastoral entertainments, housed exceptional artworks: sumptuous sculptures by Pierre Julien illustrating farm work, highly fashionable mahogany furniture by Georges Jacob and a remarkable dinner service in Sèvres porcelain which included the famous “breast bowls”. Fully restored in 2007, the queen’s dairy in Rambouillet is a remarkable example of the elegance and preciousness that characterised Marie-Antoinette and, subsequently, the court of France in the final years of the Ancien Régime. This book examines, for the first time, this wonderful piece of architecture and decorative art, a truly complete masterpiece of pastoral art.

A graduate of the École du Louvre and the Sorbonne, Antoine Maës has conducted much research into the royal domain of Rambouillet under Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

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