Terms and conditions of use
Fifth day – Fireworks at the canal of Versailles
(Cinquième journée – Feu d'artifice sur le Canal de Versailles)
1676
plate 5 from Les Divertissemens de Versailles donnez par le Roy à toute sa cour au retour de la conqueste de la Franche-Comté en l’année 1674 (Festivities at Versailles given by the King to his court following the conquest of Franche-Comté in 1674) (1676)
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mr George Collins Levey, 1879
- Gallery location
- 18th Century Decorative Arts & Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
In Jean Le Pautre’s depiction of the 1674 fireworks display, no gunmen are depicted. Rather, the pyrotechnics above the Versailles canal appear to erupt solely by the will of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The official written account of the event is similarly fantastical. Spectators, writes André Félibien, could no longer distinguish between air, water and light, and ‘from them appeared a new [extraordinary] Element’. Displays of fireworks – and their embellished retellings – were designed to reinforce Louis XIV’s image as a monarch capable of commanding both supreme order and elemental chaos.
Artwork Details
printed in ink l.c.r.: Dies Quintus. / Incedium ludicrum è pyrio puluere super Alueum Versaliarum
printed in ink l.r.: le Pautre, sculps, 1676.
Gift of Mr George Collins Levey, 1879
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of the Joe White Bequest
Level 2, NGV International