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26-507: The nearby Château de Maisons-Laffitte is home to The Museum of the Racehorse. In November 2018 France Galop announced that the racecourse would close at the end of 2019 due to financial pressures on the organisation. The final meeting was held on 29 October 2019. Despite the efforts of local government officials during 2020 there are no plans to re-open the track and the racing surface has been allowed fall into disrepair. In early 2023

52-459: A frieze of the triumph of Louis XIII, works of Gilles Guérin that have given a name to the suite of rooms. The apartment on the right, called the Appartement de la Renommée, was entirely redecorated by Bélanger for the comte d'Artois, in a discreet neoclassical style quite in keeping with the general classic style of the château. The staircase was of a type that Mansart originated at

78-714: A long-span interior space. Bélanger designed and constructed numerous hôtels particuliers for Parisian aristocrats and bankers. He designed the Château de Méréville for Jean-Joseph de Laborde , 1784–86. He designed interiors for the Hôtel Baudart de Saint-James, 12 Place Vendôme , and influenced garden designs of the epoch. He supervised the workshop supported by the connoisseur Louis-Marie-Augustin, duc d'Aumont, that produced hardstone and porphyry vases, pedestals, and tabletops, which were mounted with gilt-bronze ornaments to his designs. The late duc d'Aumont's collection

104-555: A wooden frame, (now at the Walters Art Museum , Baltimore), shows the style of the cabinets that were made at the time. It is Neoclassical taste, with caryatid demi-figures and framed medallions in blue and white Ten years later he purchased the position of chief architect to Monsieur, the comte d'Artois , brother of Louis XVI, thanks to the protection of the marquis de Voyer, Marc-René de Voyer d'Argenson , famous patron of that time. For him Bélanger designed and constructed

130-559: A wrought-iron grille brought from the Château de Mailly in Picardy . Grommé died in 1900. In his last will, he ordered his whole property to the city of Viipuri , which decided to keep his art collection but sell the château. In 1905, the State purchased the château to save it from demolition. It was classed as a monument historique in 1914. The Château de Maisons was built between

156-405: Is a payment of 20,000 livres from Longueil in 1657, apparently occasioned by the final completion of the château. A pamphlet with the title La Mansarade accused the architect of having realised, after completing the construction of the first floor, that he had committed an error in the plans and razed everything built so far in order to commence anew. Perrault emphasizes that the architect had

182-571: Is a prime example of French Baroque architecture and a reference point in the history of French architecture . The château is located in Maisons-Laffitte , a northwestern suburb of Paris , in the department of Yvelines , Île-de-France . The Longueil family, long associated with the Parlement of Paris , had been in possession of part of the seigneurie of Maisons since 1460, and a full share since 1602. Beginning in 1630, and for

208-505: Is covered in false vaulting. The apartment consists of a vast Salle des Fêtes employed also in the character of a guardroom, with a tribune for musicians. It opens into the Salon d'Hercule from the painting of Hercules defeating the Hydra that used to be featured on the chimneybreast , with sculptures by Guérin. In the end pavilion is a domed room articulated by therm figures , a precursor to

234-485: The Château de Balleroy , in which the central space is left open so that the flights climb the four walls. On the parade or main floor, the apartment to the right, called the Appartement des Aigles for the Empire style decoration effected by maréchal Lannes in expectation of the visit of Napoleon , is undistinguished. The one to the left, on the other hand, the Appartement du Roi, is also called à l'italienne in that it

260-571: The Revolution he spent some time in the prison of Saint-Lazare. In 1813, at the death of Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart he presented himself successfully as candidate for completing the Paris Bourse . From 1808 to 1813 he rebuilt the cupola of the Halle au blé , the former grain market that is the present Bourse de commerce of Paris. This was among the earliest uses of iron to enclose

286-471: The Seine and the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , with its garden front oriented to the southeast. Originally it comprised the garden, a small park of 33 hectares (82 acres) and a large outer park of 300 hectares (740 acres). The visitor arrived by one of two avenues that crossed in a T intersection before the gate to the cour d'honneur . The principal central axis led to the forest, the cross axis through

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312-630: The party pavilion Château de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne , 1777, winning his patron's bet with the Queen by completing the house in sixty-three days (and nights) and introducing décors in the style Étrusque . Bélanger constructed the Folie Saint James , a French landscape garden , in Neuilly from 1777 to 1780, and worked for the comte d'Artois at the Château of Maisons-Lafitte . During

338-566: The Menus Plaisirs du Roi designing ephemeral decorations for court fêtes, and by 1777 he was its director. In this position, he was in charge of the funeral preparations for Louis XV and the coronation coach of Louis XVI . The jewel cabinet he designed for the wedding of the Dauphin to Marie-Antoinette has not survived. However, a maquette of another design that had been also entered into the competition, made of wax and painted paper on

364-591: The direction of his house architect François-Joseph Bélanger . These works were interrupted in 1782 for lack of funds. Maisons then ceased to be kept up. Confiscated during the Revolution as "national goods", the château was sold in 1798 to an army provisioner, M. Lauchère, resold in 1804 to Marshal of the Empire Jean Lannes , and then resold once again, in 1818, to the Parisian banker Jacques Laffitte . Starting in 1834, Lafitte proceeded to develop

390-492: The end of November, the major annual Conditions races at Hippodrome de Maisons-Laffitte were: 48°57′58″N 2°10′5″E  /  48.96611°N 2.16806°E  / 48.96611; 2.16806 This article about a horse racing venue is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ch%C3%A2teau de Maisons The Château de Maisons (now Château de Maisons-Laffitte [ʃato də mɛzɔ̃ lafit] ), designed by François Mansart from 1630 to 1651,

416-541: The grand salon of Vaux-le-Vicomte . A small oval cabinet , or private withdrawing room , the Cabinet aux Miroirs (Mirror Room) bears a refined decor, and a parquet floor inlaid with pewter and bone. 48°56′50″N 2°09′14″E  /  48.94722°N 2.15389°E  / 48.94722; 2.15389 Fran%C3%A7ois-Joseph B%C3%A9langer François-Joseph Bélanger ( French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ʒozɛf belɑ̃ʒe] ; 12 April 1744 – 1 May 1818)

442-437: The habit of remodelling certain parts of his buildings more than once in a search for perfection. After the death of René de Longueil, in 1677, the château passed to his heirs until 1732, and then in succession to the marquise de Belleforière, then to the marquis de Soyécourt . In 1777, it became the property of King Louis XVI 's brother, Charles Philip, count of Artois , who carried out important interior transformations under

468-485: The horses. The château stood on a rectangular platform outlined in the French manner with a dry moat . The cour d'honneur was defined by terraces. The central block extends symmetrically into short wings, composed of several sections, each with its own roofline, with raked roofs and tall chimney stacks, in several ranges, with a broken façade reminiscent of the planning in work of Pierre Lescot and Philibert Delorme in

494-643: The next decades, René de Longueil , first president of the Cour des aides and then président à mortier to the Parlement of Paris , devoted the fortune inherited by his wife, Madeleine Boulenc de Crévecœur (who died in 1636), to the construction of a magnificent château. By 1649, he was able to spend the summer months in his new house, but works on the outbuildings continued after that date. Louis XIV visited Maisons in April 1651. The attribution to François Mansart

520-522: The preceding century. The single pile construction, typical of its epoch , carries three storeys, a basement supporting a ground floor, and piano nobile with three attic floors above. The grand central entrance vestibule of stone was originally enclosed by exceptionally fine wrought-iron grilles, which are today at the Louvre . Large bas-reliefs of The Seasons were executed by Gilles Guérin after drawings provided by Jacques Sarazin , who oversaw all

546-516: The sale of the racecourse to a public land operator, L’établissement public foncier d’Île-de-France (EPFIF), was completed. The new owners plan to revitalize the site and restart horse racing. The racecourse layout was unique as it was one of the few courses in the world that staged both left- and right-handed races. It also featured a 2,000-metre straight track, one of the longest in Europe and three different winning posts. From early March through to

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572-442: The sculpture provided for Maisons. There are lunettes representing The Elements, for which Sarazin's drawings also survive. This vestibule gives onto two state apartments. The apartment on the left, called the Appartement des Captifs, was that of René de Longueuil; it has retained its original decor. The chimneypiece of the corner room, the chambre de parade represents a bas-relief medallion of Louis XIII supported by captives and

598-480: The surrounding park as building lots; he tore down the fine stables to furnish construction materials for the purchasers. After his daughter, the Princesse de la Moskowa, sold the château in 1850, it passed to M. Thomas de Colmar, and to the painter William Tilman Grommé  [ ru ] , who farmed out the small park and demolished the entrance gateway to the forecourt, enclosing the severely reduced space with

624-402: The village to the southwest and to the river, thence on to Paris. Three gateways stood at the far ends of the avenues. On either side of the avant-cour , Mansart constructed the stables, masterworks of architecture whose monumental character gave a preview of those that would be built at Versailles and Chantilly . Of these works, there remains only a grotto , which had served also to water

650-671: Was a French architect and decorator working in the Neoclassic style . Born in Paris , Bélanger attended the Académie Royale d'Architecture (1764–1766) where he studied under Julien-David Le Roy and Pierre Contant d'Ivry . He did not win the coveted Prix de Rome that would have sent him to study at Rome; however, through Le Roy's circle he was introduced to some advanced neoclassical designers, such as Charles-Louis Clérisseau . Bélanger began his career in 1767, working at

676-459: Was common knowledge among contemporaries. Charles Perrault reported its reputation: "The château of Maisons, of which he [Mansart] had made all the buildings and all the gardens, is of such a singular beauty that there is not a curious foreigner who does not go there to see it, as one of the finest things that we have in France." Nevertheless, the sole surviving document mentioning Mansart's name

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