The Château d'Écouen is an historic château in the commune of Écouen, some 20 km north of Paris, France, and a notable example of French Renaissance architecture. Since 1975, it has housed the collections of the Musée national de la Renaissance (National Museum of the Renaissance).
Records show that a fortress has existed on this hilltop site since the 12th century. The fortress guarded the Plain of France, the historic invasion route from the north. Anne de Montmorency, a nobleman, senior minister and childhood companion of King François Ier, inherited the fortress in 1515. In 1538, the King named Montmorency Constable of France, commander of the armed forces, and the grand master of the household of the King. Montmorency decided to reconstruct the castle completely in order to make it suitable for receiving the King in grand style.
The Château was laid out following the plan of the royal Château of Chambord in the Loire Valley. It was set on a terrace overlooking the countryside below, encircled by a false moat with a fortified wall surrounded with bastions, probably symbolizing the Constable's role as commander of the army. The chateau was in the form of a rectangle around a central courtyard, with square pavilions on the corners.
The Constable and his wife, Madeleine of Savoy, resided in the south wing, which contained their private chapel and apartments. The north wing was entirely devoted to royal visitors: It contained the suite of the Queen on the first floor and the suite of the King on the floor above. The top floors of the three main wings feature rows of lucarnes, or dormer windows.
The present neoclassical entrance wing is a late addition, constructed after Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, decided in 1787 to demolish the original gateway, which was surmounted by a statue of Montmorency, in order to have a better view of the garden. The new neoclassical entrance wing was completed in 1807 by the architect Antoine-François Peyre.
The museum collections have a history of their own, separate from the château. The first collections were originally acquired by the French state in 1843 from Alexandre Du Sommerard (1779-1842), Counselor and Master of the Cour-des Comptes, who assembled a very large collection of objects from Antiquity until the French Renaissance. After his death, these became the heart of the collection of the new Cluny Museum in Paris.
The Cluny Museum re-opened after the German occupation in World War II, and a long debate began on where to put the Renaissance Art. This was not settled until 1969, when the Culture Minister André Malraux proposed opening a new museum in the Château d'Écouen. The chateau, which had been stripped of almost all art, was renovated by architects of the Monument historiques.
The new collection was chosen from among the objects of the Cluny collection based on chronology and style. The first galleries of the new museum opened in October 1977. A number of rooms have been furnished with objects suitable for the use of different historical figures from the history of the château. A series of small, focussed exhibitions have been staged at Écouen over the years since the museum opened completely in 1982.
2 months ago
CaptainMoonlight
Thank you!!!
2 years ago
Vizipok
Superbe !
2 years ago
LePapeBorgia
TY!
2 years ago
Ginete
Toujours superbe, comme d'habitude. On ne s'en lasse pas !
2 years ago
albatros48