Decorative Arts Museum. Palais Rohan by Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg

Decorative Arts Museum Palais Rohan

Located on the ground floor of the Rohan Palace, the former residence of the prince-bishops built between 1732 and 1742, this museum includes the sumptuous apartments of the Rohan cardinals as well as the Strasbourg decorative art collections, mainly focused on the history of applied arts in Strasbourg during the 18th century.

Decorative Arts Museum Palais Rohan

HANDBOOK

9 7823 5 1 2517 99 9 €

Consoles between the windows in the assembly hall and porcelain baluster vase, China, c. 1750–80

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History of the Palace, of the Rohan family and the establishment of the museum

A residence for four cardinals from the Rohan family, then city hall during the Revolution, and latterly an imperial and royal palace, the Palais Rohan paints a vivid picture of aristocratic lifestyles in the 18th century. The boom experienced by the former free city of the Holy Roman Empire in that century did not begin immediately after it was returned to France in 1681. It was only in 1727 that the decision was finally taken to build, on the site of the former episcopal residence abandoned by the bishops who had retreated from Strasbourg during the Reformation, a palace worthy of the rank occupied by one of the foremost lords of his time in Alsace, henceforth a French province: Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Rohan-Soubise, prince-bishop of Strasbourg since 1704, and as such landgrave of Lower Alsace and prince of the Holy Roman Empire, cardinal since 1712, grand chaplain of France in 1713, commander of the Royal Order of the Holy Spirit. Having obtained in 1727 letters patent from the king authorising the levy of a tax on the inhabitants of the bishopric for the construction of the new episcopal palace, the cardinal turned for plans to the king’s chief architect, Robert de Cotte. The prince-bishop’s ambition was twofold: as the focus of at once spiritual and temporal power, the edifice was to glorify the Church in the guise of the prince of Rohan and the kingdom of France in that of the king. In consequence, the residence must above all be worthy of being occupied by the king and thus contribute to the prestige of the proud house of Rohan.

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Architecture

The Palais Rohan offers a perfect example of great classical French architecture whose most eloquent illustration is the Château de Versailles, the universal model for every royal construction in Europe. It deploys the codes of this architectural language whose predominant notes are nobility and grandeur: inspired by antiquity, it is governed by straight lines and symmetrical compositions. To draw up plans for the edifice, Armand-Gaston de Rohan’s choice fell on the architect Robert de Cotte. During the ten years of the palace’s construction, from 1732 to 1742, the various trades operating on the site were exempted from the restrictive local guild regulations.

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Architecture

1 Entrance facade

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2 Entrance gate

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Architecture

The Palais Rohan, an exceptional edifice

Arranged around a courtyard and a garden, the plans correspond to those of larger Parisian mansions. Located in the middle of a medieval city, however, space for the palace was limited, and planting parterres and gardens proved out of the question. Always intended as a royal palace, the chief These Robert de Cotte replaced with a terpurpose of the Palais Rohan was to be race incorporating a public passageway able to lodge the king and other crowned along the facade of the palace on the river heads when residing in Strasbourg. It was side. The architect also had to come to erected in a region that had only recently terms with a plot of land that slopes from become French (1681) and consequently the cathedral to the River Ill lower down. in which the Catholic religion had to be This difficulty de Cotte brilliantly finessed reintroduced. The architect’s mission by incorporating its unevenness into the was thus to embody in stone the political, main range, equipping the facade facing ecclesiastical and social functions vested the river with three floors and the courtin Armand-Gaston de Rohan. yard side with just two. Erected on the site of the former abode of the Even before the completion of the works, the prince-bishops, the palace not only benepalace was already serving as a model for fits from a vast space but also from unoblocal architects who borrowed procestructed views on all sides, thus enhancing dures or quoted it wholesale in plans for its palatial character. The building differs the construction or modernisation of from the pre-existing urban fabric by a Strasbourg residences. polychrome decoration that gives it a Parisian style. Blocks of yellow sandstone, reminiscent of Paris limestone, are used for the facades on the noble floors, while the roofs are covered with slate. These materials contrast noticeably with the pink sandstone and terracotta tiles customarily employed in Alsace.

Stable wing in pink Soultz sandstone and the front to the Ill in yellow Wasselonne sandstone 2012 (photo Marc Walter)

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Architecture

François-I. Guérin Elevation of the Palais Rohan, square and terrace facades, c. 1780, Cabinet des Estampes et des Dessins

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The palace apartments

Grand receptions

The king’s antechamber

The first major space offering access to the Serving as a royal antechamber, the Salle apartments, the Salle du Synode consists des Évêques, panelled and laid with parin a pair of rooms separated by a row of quet flooring, remains architectural in arcades. In line with the main vestibule, it spirit, with its archway motif decorating served as an entry hall to both the large the woodwork. It takes its name from and the small apartments, its eastern part eight full-length portraits of the doubling up as a dining room. The ornaprince-bishops of Strasbourg – that is, Carmental design of the walls follows the dinal Armand-Gaston de Rohan and his principle of arcades and fluted pilasters seven predecessors – which once hang set in the vestibule that was itself a continembedded in the wainscoting. Destroyed uation of the pattern of archways surin 1793, these paintings were replaced by rounding the main courtyard preceding it. allegories of civic virtues when the former It is the repetition of this motif that episcopal palace was converted into the ensures the transition between external City Hall in the aftermath of the Revoluand internal structure. The mineral chartion. The centre of the ceiling is adorned acter of the room is further brought out with a rosette in the shape of the Cross of by stone-laid pavement. The programme the Holy Spirit, alluding to the cardinal as for the imagery in the second half of the grand chaplain of France and commander Salle du Synode recalls its original purof the Order of the Holy Spirit from 1713. pose: trophies of hunting, fishing, wine Abundantly furnished prior to the Revoluand music carved into the reveals of the tion, the room included marble-topped arcades separating the twin rooms to gilt-wood consoles between the windows, evoke the theme of dining; basins of benches and stools covered with SavonRance marble surmounted by niches nerie tapestry, à la Reine armchairs adorned with frescoes and bronzed stucco trimmed with crimson Utrecht velvet, dark reliefs on aquatic themes; the fresco down cane chairs and eighteen gaming tables. the axis representing Ceres, Roman goddess of the harvest. 13 Salle des évêques 12 Salle du synode

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14 King’s chamber

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The palace apartments

Royal suite

The king’s chamber, with the assembly hall following it, constitutes a masterpiece of 18th-century French decoration, with its peerless carved oak panelling painted in grey and gold and its stucco ceiling, all executed in a consummate rocaille style. The allegorical ornamental motifs adorning the room allude either to sleep or to the House of Rohan. The abundance of sculpture, and, consequently, of gilding, together with the pier glasses – particularly costly at that time – conspire to create a particularly luxurious chamber, and mark the climax of the decoration of the apartment. The alcove is dramatically framed by engaged pillars coupled to free-standing columns linked by a gilt balustrade. The back of the alcove is lined with three of the nine hangings forming the Tapestry of the History of Constantine, acquired by the cardinal in 1738. 14 King’s chamber

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The palace apartments

Biblical scenes

In the arms of Morpheus

The religious iconography of the overdoor The ornamentation of the king’s bedchampaintings and in those above the mirrors ber creates a world in which grandeur and in the king’s apartment is somewhat surwealth are tempered by the sensuousness prising, since such subjects might have of the rocaille style. Here everything been expected in the cardinal’s apartment undulates, the door mouldings and the nearby. Coherency between the king’s panelling of the parclose that echo them, chamber and cabinet is ensured not only the sumptuous borders of the overdoors, by the overall design of the decoration, the pier-glass frames and the ceiling corbut also by the subjects chosen for the nice inscribing powerful brackets resempaintings set into the carved panelling. bling crossbows. This group of paintings, particularly the As to the decoration, a number of ornaments overdoors, copies of Raphael’s loggias in convey allegorical meanings related to the Vatican, allude to the pontiff, whose sleep. A garland of poppies wraps around portrait occupied the place of honour the edges of the two pier glasses. Often above the headboard of the king’s bed. reappearing in the interior decoration, the The fifty-two Biblical scenes commissioned flower, with its narcotic virtues, is rendered by Leo X to adorn the apostolic palace logwith an extreme naturalism. The bird- and gias place the emphasis on the succour batwings peeking out over the top of the that God never ceases to show to the faithdoors, rimming the overdoors, and interful. The prince-bishop selected eight, havtwined with the arabesques on the coring them copied in Rome by Pierre-Ignace nice also point to sleep and night-time, as Parrocel (1702–1775). The four copies in do the bat-winged sphinxes framing the the bedchamber serve to remind the king cartouches dedicated to the four times of that he receives God’s power through the day arranged at the corners of the ceiling. Church, while the four copies in the cabinet call upon the monarch place his trust 16 King’s chamber in the Lord. Cornice on the ceiling, Diana or The Evening Hour 15 King’s chamber Pierre-Ignace Parrocel, after Raphael, The Baptism of Christ

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The palace apartments

15 Pierre-Ignace Parrocel, after Raphael, The Baptism of Christ

16 Cornice on the ceiling, Diana or The Evening Hour

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17 Library

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Decorative arts wing

28 Terrine in the shape of a capercaillie standing on a mound

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Decorative arts wing

29 Terrine in the shape of a cabbage with tray

30 Potpourris in the shape of a dromedary and an elephant

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Decorative arts wing

Clockmaking

Born in Switzerland, Isaac Habrecht founded a famous dynasty of watchmakers in Strasbourg whose members continued to maintain the timepiece in the cathedral until the beginning of the 18th century. The museum’s clock room presents works The earliest fully mechanical clocks appeared by two of his descendants, his grandson, during the 13th century in church buildIsaac III Habrecht, and his son, Abraham ings. Strasbourg cathedral benefited from III Habrecht, both of whom specialised in three state-of-the-art astronomical clocks smaller pieces. Like the Habrechts, other successively constructed by some of the Strasbourg horologers, too, gradually foremost specialists of the era. From the shifted their attention from large- to smallfirst, the Clock of the Three Kings (1352– scale clockmaking, producing pieces 54), only an automat cockerel made of whose cost made them the preserve the wood and metal survives. Irreparable by well-to-do. This change of direction is illusthe end of the 15th century, by 1571–74 a trated by several attractive pieces exhibreplacement was in place in the cathedral ited in this room. where it remained visible until 1838. This piece – exceptional as much for its complex astronomical movement and enviable timekeeping as for the quality of the paintings and automata it contained – sealed the reputation of the designers and craftsmen responsible, the mathematician Conrad Dasypodius, the painter Tobias Stimmer, and two brother watchmakers, Isaac and Josias Habrecht. The case, kept by Schwilgué when he fitted a new movement in 1840, can still be seen in the cathedral, together with Tobias Stimmer’s paintings and some of the original statuettes. Some of the clock’s spectacular components are today on display in the horology department of the Decorative Arts Museum.

The horology department

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Decorative arts wing

Full moon

Cockle-doodle-doo!

This moon dial came originally from Stras- This cockerel is the only surviving component bourg’s second astronomical clock, the from the Clock of the Three Kings, the first 16th-century specimen designed by the astronomical clock in Strasbourg cathemathematician Conrad Dasypodius. The dral (1352–54), which broke down comdial possesses two large discs, one correpletely after a century’s loyal service. The sponding to the full moon and the other bird is the oldest Western automaton to to the new, which vanish in turn behind a have come down to us, an anonymous masstarry sky to form the various lunar quarterpiece of medieval mechanics, which, ters. The hand following the motion of the reused in the second astronomical clock moon indicates the lunar phase and the erected in the cathedral, was imitated interval between successive new moons throughout Europe. Made entirely of polyon a dial graduated with twice twentychrome wood and wrought iron, its dimennine days painted in gold. Around this sions are impressive: 1.20 metres high, 40 dial, eight small moons seven centimetres centimetres wide and 1.1 metres deep. The in diameter indicate the lunar phases; cockerel from today’s astronomical clock they correspond to the portions of the stands atop a turret that contains the moon illuminated by the sun observable majority of the weights driving the clock’s from the earth. The panel, in cut and movement. Like his predecessor, at noon painted sheet-metal, is adorned with he crows three times and flaps his wings clouds and a scattering of tiny six-pointed during the parade of the Apostles passing stars. Painted with great finesse, the moon, before the blessing Christ. also made of sheet-metal and touched off with gold, represents a face with an enig- 37 Cockerel from the earliest matic expression. astronomical clock c. 1350, polychrome wood and wrought 36 Moon dial from the second iron, H. 121 cm; L. 40 cm; prof. 111 cm astronomical clock polychrome cut sheet metal, Strasbourg Cathedral, 16th century, H. 124 cm; L. 137 cm; prof. 16 cm

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Decorative Arts Museum Palais Rohan

HANDBOOK

9 7823 5 1 2517 99 9 €

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