Dans l'Atelier des Menus Plaisirs - Exhibition

Proserpine
(libretto by Quinault, music by Lully)
Frontispiece designed by Berain

Dans l'atelier des Menus Plaisirs du Roi - spectacles, fêtes et cérémonies aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle (In the atelier of the King's Menus Plaisirs - performances, feasts and ceremonies in the 17th and 18th centuries) is the title of the current exhibition at the Archives Nationales (January 19 - April 24, 2011).

The "Menus Plaisirs du Roi" was the department of the Maison du Roi (royal household) in charge of the preparation of the events, festivities and ceremonies (including funerals) for the kings of France. They were working as event organizers and their duty ranged from planning the events to the design of the costumes, sets, architectures and their making.

The Archives Nationales are the keeper of the archives of the Maison du Roi, and have a large collection of manuscripts related to the performances and ceremonies organized at the French court during the ancien régime. Among these records, we find a set of eight volumes titled Recueils de décoration de théâtre et de pompes funèbres. It is a collection of drawings from various times and events gathered by the Menus Plaisirs, or, to be more precise, by Antoine Angélique Levesque (1709-1767), "Garde général des magasins des Menus Plaisirs du Roi" i.e. responsible of the place where the costumes and decorations were made and stored.

The Menus Plaisirs archives have recently been inventoried, identified and classified and the present exhibition is a way to value the important work done.

Amadis de Gaule (1699), project by Jean Bérain
libretto by Antoine Houdar de la Motte - music by André Cardinal Destouches

A huge and most interesting 256-pages catalogue was published on the occasion :
Dans l'atelier des Menus Plaisirs du Roi - spectacles, fêtes et cérémonies aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle.
by Jérôme de la Gorce et Pierre Jugie
ISBN : 978-2-85495-439-5
Archives Nationales, Paris, 2010
Editions Artlys, Versailles 2010
€ 35

But that's not all : more interesting, especially to those of my foreign readers who cannot attend the exhibition or read the catalogue, the archives Nationales have put the whole series of books compiled by Antoine Angélique Levesque on their site ARCHIM :

Recueils de décorations de théâtre
recueillies par Monsieur Levesque,
garde général des magasins des Menus Plaisirs
de la Chambre du roy, 1752

Enjoy !

The Hours of the Day, Musée Magnin, Dijon

Through paintings, documents, objects and pieces of furniture, the exhibition describes the daily life of a high-society family from the late 17th century to the late 19th century. It introduces the routines and habits and shows their evolution through the time.

Testifying on the importance of music, a "table à sextuor" (sextet table) designed by Pierre II Migeon.

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Les Heures du jour - Dans l'intimité d'une famille de la haute société, de Louis XIV à la IIIe République

Musée National Magnin, Dijon (France)

Nov 19 2009 - February 14 2010

Musée Magnin

Magic Lantern

Athanasius Kircher's Magic Lantern

(Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae)

A current exhibition at the Cinémathèque Française is dedicated to magic lanterns and painted films. It's a very enriching time travel to the origins of the motion picture.

There is funny anecdote about Christiaan Huygens. He invented his magic lantern as part of his experiments on optics but he was not interested in its entertaining potential. Unlike him, his father Constantin was enthusiastic about it and, in 1662, asked his son to send him a magic lantern to give a show to Louis XIV and his court. Christiaan felt horrified. He thought that having his name associated with that kind of show would ruin his reputation of respectable scientist, and he didn't want his father to condescend to the role of fair entertainer. As he couldn't refuse the lantern, he sent the instrument but asked his brother to take off a lens to make sure it wouldn't work. He was hoping that by the time his father could figure out how to fix the problem he would have changed his mind about the show. And that was what happened. Constantin Huygens never showed the magic lantern to Louis XIV.

A few years later, in 1666, Christiaan Huygens, invited by Colbert, became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences.

Lanterne magique et film peint - 400 ans de cinéma

Paris, Cinémathèque Française, October 14, 2009 - March 28, 2010

Torino, Venaria Reale, October 12 2010 - January 09, 2011

laternamagica

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Off topic, but Proust is one of my favourite writers...

On the laternamagica site, there is a Lapierre series of slides titled 'Genevieve de Brabant'. I think that it is likely to be the series Proust described in In Search of Lost Time.