19th C. Auguste Guillaumot (1815–1892) Engravings, Louis XIV Home, Marly-Le-Roi

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A rare pair of first edition, architectural book plates showcasing Le Chateau Marly-Le-Roi, Louis XIV's 17th century royal residence that … Read more A rare pair of first edition, architectural book plates showcasing Le Chateau Marly-Le-Roi, Louis XIV's 17th century royal residence that was destroyed during the French Revolution. The paper has aged and the ink is a sepia color. Encased in French matting and a wide silver gilt wood frame.

Le Chateau Marly-Le-Roi (Frontispice)
A view of the castle, outbuildings and surrounding gardens
Image engraved from renderings at the Imperial Library

Salle des Gardes et Chapelle Sur Le Jardin (Plate 3)
Guard house and chapel
Image drawn from renderings at the Imperial Library

These plates were published by A. Morel et Cie (1865).

Auguste Guillaumot (1815–1892) was an architectural draughtsman and engraver who contributed to the rediscovery of the Château de Marly. Louis XIV’s former royal place, sold during the Revolution and then destroyed in the early nineteenth century, had become a deserted park.

With Academic training centred around Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, experience illustrating many architectural books and participating annually in the Salon des Artistes Français, the architectural draughtsman and engraver Auguste-Alexandre Guillaumot remains closely associated with Marly. For over thirty years he visited the estate many times, seeking perspectives to sketch, which he brought together in a monograph.

Through close study of drawings and engravings of the Château de Marly at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and in the Archives Nationales, and examining the remains unearthed during the first excavations at the site – carried out at his instigation – Guillaumot took on the difficult task of evoking a place that had almost completely disappeared for fifty years. He implemented an original intellectual and artistic approach, combining research-driven and field archaeology. His drawings, a large number of which are preserved at the Musée-Promenade de Marly-le-Roi/Louveciennes are testament to the pictorial sources consulted and the artistic steps between the archival material and the finished engravings.

However most of his career was dedicated to the Château de Marly, realizing views from nature, copies of archival documents and reconstructions, before finally settling in the village of Marly. In 1857 he published a monograph on the Château de Marly and exhibited a view of Marly’s watering place; a short while later the Historical Monuments committee classified the vestiges. This first study was taken up and completed in a large illustrated book, which was published in 1865 by the art and architecture publisher, Auguste Morel.

A second edition, featuring new engravings, was published in 1876, then a third around 1910, ensuring the work’s wide dissemination. Guillaumot complemented his archival research by several archaeological excavations in the park and also made the first survey of the remains of the royal pavilion. He thus preceded the first restorations, conservation work and excavations in the early twentieth century. See less