Le salon du Grand Arsenal à Paris (1654-1660). Restitution et analyse d'un décor disparu
Résumé
The Grand Arsenal in Paris has always maintained its place in the history of seventeenth century Parisian interior decoration, by virtue of the surviving elements of the apartment of the Maréchale de La Meilleraye. However the discovery of contracts for the woodwork and the painting, published here as an annex, serve to resuscitate in its entire splendor, another décor in the Arsenal, which, although it no longer exists today, was much more important in its time. This is the salon of the apartment of the grand master of the Artillerie de France, an unusually large room in the Italian style (à l'italienne), put together after the Fronde by command of Charles de La Porte. The analysis of these documents sheds light on the major role of this salon within the decorative activities in the 1650s in Paris, as much by the social and political importance of its patron as by the quality of the numerous artists involved, constituting an emblematic case of the practices and the ambitions of decoration during the time of Mazarin.