L’ameublement du salon d’Apollon, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle

If the Salon d’Apollon shone in its function as the Salle du Trône, it radiated with the furnishings under the Ancien Régime. It reflected the pride of the sovereigns who competed in luxury and extravagance, mirroring the grandeur of the kingdom. Admired in its time – and imagined today, since revolutionaries emptied it – the Salle du Trône is fascinating, with both the luxury displayed and the events that took place there. If the furnishings of royal residences expressed the splendour of power, that of the Salon d’Apollon was the paragon: the exuberance of the silver furniture and the magnificence of the gilded wood were only matched by the sumptuous textiles that helped make this room a setting worthy of the crown, on which it exalted prestige. Archives and contemporaneous testimonials, dazzled by such splendour, today allow us to appreciate the different states of the furnishings of the Salon d’Apollon in the 1680s to the eve of the Revolution