Chantilly's collection of historical paintings (before 1850) is, after the Louvre Museum, the largest in France.

• The Galerie des Cerfs (The Stag Gallery)

The Galerie des Cerfs, an immense reception and dining room of the Duc d'Aumale, was built between 1875 and 1880 by the architect Honoré Daumet.

The Prince entertained the artistic and intellectual elite of his generation in this room, under the hunting tapestries by Maximilien, based on portfolios by Bernard van Orley. This wall covering was made in the Gobelins at the end of the 17th century for the Comte de Toulouse, the natural son of King Louis XIV. A rostrum, which could accommodate musicians during dinners, dominates the entrance.

• The Galerie de Peintures (The Gallery of Paintings)

Visit the Galerie de Peintures as if you were there

The Galerie de Peintures is typical of the lay out of 19th century museums, whether public or private. The Duc d'Aumale stipulated in his will that he wished to keep this exhibition lay out. It is a vast room with bevelled corners, lit through an overhead glass roof. The works of art are exhibited frame by frame on Pompey Red picture rails, as a function of their format, without any chronological order. On the left wall, there are paintings by Italian painters, or works which were executed in Italy (Poussin, Dughet), while the right wall displays paintings from the French school.

The Gallery contains numerous historical French portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Mazarin or Richelieu by Philippe de Champaigne. Some were owned by the Condé family (portrait of Mademoiselle de Clermont, sister of the Duc de Bourbon, by Nattier, 1729). The portrait of Marie Antionette, Dauphine, in 1773 by Drouais was commissioned by Louis XV for the Château de Choisy.
The Déjeuner d'Huitres (the Lunch of Oysters) by J.F. de Troy and the Déjeuner de Jambon (the Lunch of Ham) by Nicolas Lancret (1735, on either side of the steps leading to La Rotonde) were commissioned by Louis XV for the dining room in the Petits Appartements of Versailles.

Neo-classicism (Gérard, Les Trois Ages, 1806, Caroline Murat collection) and Romanticism (Delacroix, Les Deux Foscari, 1855). The Duc d'Aumale, who had lived in Algeria, was fond of Orientalism (right wall) and particularly Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, but also Horace Vernet, Marilhat, Ziem and Fromentin (Chasse au Héron en Algérie, 1865). The Duc d'Aumale, a former general, also acquired military paintings by Meissonier (Les Cuirassiers, 1805) and Alphonse de Neuville.

• The Galeries du Logis (The Household Galleries)

Originally dedicated to the exhibition of drawings, these two galleries are now home to works showing the transformation of Chantilly throughout history and some of the historical events that took place there.

Pierre Vernet,
Courses à Chantilly en 1836 (Chantilly Races)

The first races in Chantilly took place at the instigation of the Duc d'Orléans, brother of the Duc d'Aumale, whose jockeys wore the colours of scarlet silks with a blue velvet cap with gold tassels. The riders depicted are passing in front of the grandstand and one can see the Grandes Ecuries on the right of the painting, and the terrace of the Grand Château (razed to the ground after the French Revolution), the remaining Petit Château and the Château d'Enghien. The composition of this painting inspired the Derby d'Epsom by Géricault (Louvre, 1821).

• Salle Clouet

French Renaissance portraits including the kings and queens of France in the 16th century: François I, Henri II, Charles IX, Henri III and Queen Catherine de Médicis (four different portraits), and the writer Montaigne. During the 16th century, portraiture was transformed in France due to the presence of artists of Flemish origin such as Jean Clouet or Corneille de La Haye, known as Corneille de Lyon. Jean Clouet, known as Janet, probably died in 1541. His son François, also nicknamed Janet and whose works are often mistaken with those of his father, took over his work and the running of his studio. Jean Clouet's work consist entirely of portraits painted on small wooden panels, with the persons portrayed from the waist upwards, with their faces lit by even lighting, and their hand laid down in the forefront. Corneille de Lyon was specialised in portraits with green backgrounds, which enhanced the characters represented. Both artists' work was very intimate and realist, where the model is looking away from the observer. Chantilly is also the home of more than three hundred and sixty portraits dating from the 16th century, including a large number of preparatory drawings for the paintings exhibited in the Salle Clouet.



Portrait of King François I
By Jean Clouet


Marguerite de France, Queen of Navarre
By François Clouet

• Salle Caroline

The Salle Caroline, named in honour of the Duchesse d'Aumale, Marie Caroline de Bourbon Siciles, Princesse de Salerne, displays French 17th and 18th century portraits.

Le Donneur de Sérénade, (The Serenador)
Watteau

Two charming figures, Le Donneur de Sérénade (The Serenador) and L'Amante Inquiète (The Anxious Lover) by Watteau and four head studies by Jean Baptiste Greuze, including Tête de Jeune Fille (Young Girl's Head), a design used for L'Accordée de Village (Louvre, 1761).

• Salon d'Orléans

Formerly the room where the Duc d'Aumale displayed his drawings, the Salon d'Orléans now houses a magnificent collection of Chantilly porcelain. Created in 1725 on the initiative of the Duc de Bourbon in order to limit the importation of porcelain from China and Japan, the Chantilly porcelain factory began by producing porcelain that was inspired by the Far East, with "Kakiemon" patterns, then porcelain with blue decoration with twig or carnation designs. Chantilly porcelain, which is in fact only cream coloured earthenware, was rivalled from 1750 by the royal porcelain factory in Vincennes - Sèvres, which used genuine kaolin. As a result, Chantilly porcelain is rare and very sought after by collectors.

• Salle Isabelle

All of the artistic trends prevailing in the 19th are represented in the Salle Isabelle: Neo-classicism, with Ingres (Paolo and Francesca); Romanticism, with Géricault, Gudin and Léopold Robert; Orientalism, with Decamps and Delacroix, who in 1832 accompanied a French diplomatic mission to Morocco (Le Corps de Garde au Maroc (The Guardhouse in Morocco, 1847)); the Barbizon school, with Théodore Rousseau and Daubigny and Academicism, with Gérome, J.P. Laurens, Meissonier and Protais.

Eugène Delacroix,
Le corps de garde à
Meknès, 1847

From January to June 1832, Delacroix, the leading light in the romanticism movement, accompanied a French embassy to the Sultan of Morocco Mulay Abd-er-Rhaman through Morocco, Algiers and Spain, and there discovered the East. He painted this work fifteen years later, from his notes from the trip (three of which are in the Louvre and one in Chantilly). This is in fact a replica of the painting presented at the Salon of 1847 (Wuppertal, museum) by Delacroix that was commissioned by the Duc d'Aumale. It was seized in Les Tuileries in 1848 during the 1848 Revolution.

• Cabinet du Giotto

The Cabinet du Giotto is dedicated to primitive Italian paintings.

Enguerrand Quarton, La Vierge de Miséricorde
(The Virgin of Mercy), 1453

This work was commissioned in 1452 by the banker Pierre Cadard for the Eglise des Célestins in Avignon. It represents the Virgin spreading out her cloak of mercy over clerics, on the left hand side (the pope, cardinals, archbishops and monks) and over the laity on the right hand side (emperor, king, queen, bourgeois, peasants). On either side are the parents of the donor, Jean Cadard and Jeanne des Moulins, in prayer, represented by their patron saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist.

Maso di Banco,
La Dormition de la Vierge (The Sleeping Virgin)

For many years attributed to Giotto, this painting is now considered to be by his pupil, Maso di Banco. It comes from an altarpiece comprising Le Couronnement de la Vierge (Budapest, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and La Vierge à la Ceinture (Berlin-Dahlem, Staatliche Museum), and originally come from the Prato cathedral. The perspective is underlined by the vanishing lines on the ceiling.

• The Salle de la Minerve

This room groups together portraits of the Orléans family, which shows the evolution of portraiture in France from the end of the 17th century up to the middle of the 18th century.

Portrait of the Princesse Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte de Bavière (1652-1722), Duchesse d'Orléans
Nicolas de Largillierre

The portrait of the Palatine Princess depicts her dressed as a spring, a mythological fancy dress that was common in the 17th century. The artist has taken great care to bring out the shimmering fabrics whose sharp folds confer the painting with great charm. The wife of Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV, was a regular visitor to Chantilly. Quite spiritual, she described herself thus in 1698: "I am monstrously fat and shaped like a cube. My skin is red, mottled with yellow. My nose and my two cheeks have been completely scarred by smallpox. I have a large mouth and bad teeth". Largillierre manages to bring out the strong personality and intelligence that emanated from the princess in this portrait.

• The Salle de La Smalah

The Salle de La Smalah is now dedicated to exhibiting works donated to the Condé Museum in 1997 by the Amis du Musée Condé on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Duc d'Aumale's death and acquired on the sale of the count in Paris in 1996.



Benjamin Constant,
The Duc d'Aumale in 1896



Jalabert,
The Duc and the Duchesse d'Aumale in 1866

• Galerie de Psyché

Stained glass window in the gallery of the Château d'Ecouen (1542 - 1544),
part of the history of Psyche.

The 44 stained glass windows of the history of Psyche come from the Château d'Ecouen. These windowpanes, commissioned by Le Connétable Anne de Montmorency for the gallery of his Château d'Ecouen, were prepared by the "grisaille" technique with highlights in silver yellow stain on white glass. They relate the history of Psyche, taken from the fable of L'Ane d'Or d'Apulée (The Golden Ass of Apulée): Venus, who wanted to punish Psyche because her beauty offended her, orders her sun Cupid to avenge her. But Cupid falls in love with Pysche. Venus, extremely annoyed, persecutes the two young lovers until Jupiter takes them under his protection. Finally, all of the protagonists are reunited at the banquet of the gods. This love story was often used in the Renaissance. The style of the windows resembles Fontainebleau art in the attitudes of the characters, the decorative elements and the accessories that have been added to the scenes. Several windowpanes are marked with the date of manufacture: 1542 and 1543.

• Santuario

This room contains two paintings by Raphael - Les Trois Grâces (The Three Graces), inspired by an antique marble, and La Vièrge de la Maison d'Orléans (theVirgin of the House of Orleans), from the Orleans collection, which was dispersed in 1791. In addition, there is a panel of the history of Esther by Filippino Lippi and 40 miniatures by Jean Fouquet for the Book of Hours (Prayer book) of Etienne Chevalier, the treasurer of King Charles VII, represented with the features of one of the Three Wise Men.

Les Trois Grâces, Raphaël

For his painting Les Trois Grâces, Raphael took his inspiration from an antique marble. The composition was copied by the artist who, originally, had painted the woman on the right making a faint gesture of modesty, the woman in the centre with her hands lying on the shoulders of her companions, and only women on the left holding an apple. It was therefore a portrayal of the Judgement of Paris, the shepherd shown in a painting of comparable size in the National Gallery of London with the title Le Songe du Chevalier (The Knight's Dream). Later, Raphael changed his mind and put an apple in the hands of each of the women, thus making them the Hesperides, conferring immortality on those to whom they offer their apples. The three golden balls represented on the arms of the Medicis could also be an illusion to the commissioner of this work.

Raphael,
La Madone de la Maison d'Orléans

La Madone de La Maison d'Orléans by Raphael was acquired by the Regent Philippe d'Orléans and remained in the Orleans collection up to the French Revolution. In 1791, Philippe Egalité, covered in debt, sold all of his Italian paintings and La Madone ended up in England. This work is a magnificent example of the private Virgins of devotion by Raphael in his youth, in which the iconography is still very medieval. The "Tyriana" pot in the background is a remedy against snake bites, a symbol of evil. The Tyriana and the apple are therefore images of Christ making up for original sin.

• Le cabinet des Gemmes (The Gem Room)

The pink diamond

The pink diamond is a precious stone of exceptional size and colour, known as Le Grand Condé, because he had it set on the pommel of his walking stick. It was stolen in 1926 with the arms of Abdel-Kader and recovered several months later in incredible circumstances by the chamber maid of a small hotel near to the Gare de l'Est in Paris: she discovered the stone when she bit into an apple that she had found in the bedroom of a client, and it was then later returned with great pomp and ceremony to the Condé Museum.

• La Tribune

The name of this room, which houses a magnificent collection of works of art, evokes the Tribune des Offices in Florence. The Duc d'Aumale dedicated two walls to the Renaissance (a superb Sassetta, Le Mariage de Saint Françoise d'Assis (The marriage of St. Francis D'Assisi) with La Pauvreté, a fragment of a polyptych that has now been split up. A second wall is dedicated to the 17th and 18th centuries (Poussin, Champaigne, L'Amour Désarmé by Watteau and Le Plaisir Pastoral by Prud'hon, who created the genre), while the two other walls are devoted to the 19th century, with Neo-classicism face to face with Romanticism.

Neo-classicism is represented by the Portrait of Bonaparte by Gérard and by the masterpieces by Ingrès; l'Autoportrait (Self Portrait) at the age of 24, which was reworked several times by the artist, who only finished it after the age of sixty, the Portrait of Madame Devauçay, the Vénus Anadyomène and Antiochus et Stratonice, a painting which belonged to the Duc d'Orléans, the elder brother of the Duc d'Aumale.

Romanticism is represented by L'Entrée des Croisés à Constantinople (The Crusaders entering Constantinople) by Eugène Delacroix, L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise by Paul Delaroche and the Portrait of Talleyrand by Ary Scheffer.

Autoportrait, Ingres

L'Autoportrait of J.A.D. Ingrès (Tribune) was started by the artist at the age of 24, shown at the Salon and, when it was criticised, abandoned by Ingrès. He took it up again however, only completing it after the age of sixty, and refined it by merging shades of warm colours around the face of the artist, held erect above a gleaming white shirt.

François Baron Gérard,
Portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte,
Premier Consul - 1803

The Portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte was painted during the Consulate (1799 - 1804) by Gérard, and is a precursor of the form of physical model used to represent the Emperor Napoléon in later paintings.