Louis Xv : Passions D'un Roi

Exhibition at the Château de Versailles, 18 October 2022 - 19 February 2023

On 15 June 1722, the Court returned to Versailles and Louis XV, then aged twelve, returned to the place where he had spent his early childhood. A few months later, on 25 October, the coronation of the young king in Reims opened a long reign of more than fifty years which saw the affirmation of the French cultural and artistic model in the rest of Europe and the great shift towards modernity of which Louis XV was the melancholy hero.

Through a collection of 400 exceptional works from collections all over the world, many of which have never been shown before in France, this book, published on the occasion of the tercentenary of the return of the Court to Versailles, seeks to shed new light on Louis XV and to grasp the complexity of the man behind the monarch.

The first part of the book studies the man, his family and his entourage, as well as his taste for intimacy. The second part describes the king's passions for science, botany, hunting, his taste for buildings and the influence of all these fields on his politics. Finally, the last part shows the blossoming of the arts under the reign of Louis XV, in particular rocaille art, which revolutionised artistic creation in the 18th century.