Louis XIV’s Grande Galerie carpets at the Grand Palais

In 1668: King Louis XIV of France commissioned the Paris-based I Savonnerie manufactory to create the largest carpet ever woven. Composed of ninety-two individual pieces, the carpet was intended to cover the full span of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, measuring 440 metres, six times the length of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Woven over twenty years, the carpets were never rolled out in the space for which they were intended, Louis XIV having turned his attention away from the Louvre to Versailles. During the Revolution, many were stripped of their royal emblems or sold, some eventually finding new homes with prominent mostly French, British and American collectors and some museums.

The above text appears on the Metropolitan Muscum of Art's website to introduce 'The King's Carpet', the first-ever exhibition about the Savonnerie in the United States, which will run from 8 September 2026 to 5 March 2028. It follows a spectacular event in Paris's Grand Palais in February of this year. For years I had been hoping to do a show on Louis XIV's Grande Galerie carpets, of which the museum holds three examples. The principal hiccup was always lack of space. It is only thanks the bold vision of Hervé Lemoine, president of the Mobilier National, and his energetic team, that the collaboration with the Grand Palais came into being. For one week only, thirty-two (of the original ninety-two) Grande Galerie carpets were rolled out together in the Grand Palais's principal nave. Never before since their making, some 350 years ago, have so many carpets of the series been shown together in one space. When giving my tours of the exhibition over the course of the week, I found myself constantly apologising for the endless string of superlatives I was using to relate the story of this exceptional royal commission; but the fact is, we're looking at what was intended to be the largest carpet in the world, an aspiration that remains a unique chapter in the history of art. The Savonneries were exhibited according to their sequence in the royal inventory, which roughly corresponds with their delivery dates. This brought to the fore just how much their ornamental language changed over time, even though they always followed a similar pattern.

What also surprised us is that, when you look at each carpet individually, it is always the black background-chosen in emulation of pietre dure tops to make the colours of the rich acanthus scrolls pop-that stands out. However, seen together, in perspective, it is the carpets' hues of yellow of the outer and inner frameworks that dominate. Indeed, you immediately get the impression that the carpets were designed as a golden pathway leading to the sun, i.c. Louis XIV's throne room, located at the end of the Grande Galerie. Louis XIV had a golden carpet under his silver throne, and the kings of Denmark used to be anointed on a golden-yellow carpet.

What further struck us was the visitors' reactions to the exhibition. The short run really galvanised people to turn up, and it was heartening to see how many specialists, curators and art historians made the journey from abroad. Some commented on how, paired with Charles Le Brun's tapestries of the Histoire du roi, woven at exactly the same time as the carpets at the Gobelins, the exhibition made for an immersive experience.

Furthermore, the balcony all around the Grand Palais afforded one a perspective from above that felt reminiscent of the 1851 Great Exhibition-not that I was there myself. In a way, it was amazing to think that neither Louis XIV, nor Le Brun, and not even Pierre Verlet, who devoted so many decades to the study of the Savonnerie, ever got to see these carpets from such an elevated vantage point.

From a visceral perspective, the marriage of two architectural masterpieces, the Grande Galerie carpets and the Grand Palais, helped highlight the Baroque qualities of Le Brun's design, evoking an infinite universe of which the Sun King is the centre. And it seemed as if the endless variations of the same (acanthus) motives were dancing on their black backdrops to an eternal loop of Jean Baptiste Lully's 'Turkish March' from 1670.

From a more scholarly perspective, the laying out of thirty-two carpets, made over a span of more than twenty years, made apparent stylistic, technical and material differences, which we were able to discuss with numerous international experts who made the trip to the Grand Palais. A visual reconstruction of the Grande Galerie's layout with photographs of every carpet and carpet fragment known to us today- inspired by the fold-out line drawing at the end of Pierre Verlet's 1982 monograph-was surprisingly popular with visitors. It was encouraging to see how many people took an interest in this enormous jigsaw puzzle that the dispersed carpets have become after the French Revolution.

The exhibition marked a longstanding exchange between the Mobilier national and The Met with Madeleine Jarry and Edith Appleton Standen, which we look forward to continuing.

Together with my two co-curators, Emmanuelle Federspiel and Antonin Macé de Lépinay, both of the Mobilier National, I am currently working on a new monograph on Louis XIV's Savonnerie carpets. Commissioned for the Grande Galerie and Galerie d'Apollon of Louvre, it will comprise around ten chapters revisiting the history of the carpets from their conception to the present day, as well as a complete catalogue of all 115 pieces woven for both spaces (thirteen carpets for the Galeries d'Apollon, ninety-two for the Grande Galerie and ten reweaves to be given away as diplomatic gifts).

Every museum curator will tell you how they would have put things differently in an exhibition catalogue, had they been able to write it after the exhibition was held, rather than before. With the Grand Palais exhibition, we were given this exceptional luxury, and we will be able to include all our observations in the new book.

When I heard that a group of thirty Grande Galerie carpets from the Mobilier National would be on display at the Grand Palais for just one week, I knew that I had to experience it for myself. Arriving in Paris late morning, and after a café au lait, I entered the enormous Grand Palais eager with anticipation.

I can't think of a better space to display these carpets than the Grand Palais, except for in the Louvre's Grande Galerie itself, an impossible wish. It boasts 240 m (790 feet) of glass barrel vaulting and iron steel painted in the distinctive hue Réséda green (provided by the paint brand Ripolin since the construction of the Palais). This provided the perfect minimal yet structured backdrop.

Twelve Gobelins tapestries from the Charles Le Brun series Histoire du roi (1665-1741) hung on the far side of the carpets, giving a sense of scale and context. Walking up the stairs at the end of the hall to reach a balcony, one had a fabulous vantage point to appreciate the magnitude of the project, not to mention a dramatic Instagram image-one I kept seeing frequently in my feed.

I thought I knew this group of carpets pretty well. During my time at Christic's, we sold several fragments as well as the famous Deering carpet (no. 61), and I am familiar with the examples in American museums: the Metropolitan, Huntington and Philadelphia. However, I quickly realised that my exposure to this impressive group of carpets was in fact very limited. There were design elements that I had never noticed in this group: scrolling snakes among the acanthus; rose-coloured, marbleised architectural frameworks; almost comical bearded faces; and supine sphinxes, as well as rabbits, dogs and squirrels hiding in foliage.

After admiring the variety of ornaments, I realised that, for 350-year-old artefacts, these were in remarkable condition with full pile and deep saturated colour. With the thirty carpets side by side, several aspects of the original concept become apparent. The shared gold gadroon borders create a sense that this is one long, extravagant carpet. It is hard to believe that the original layout would have been 440 metres in length. Though we were looking at only a third of the series, it would have been an intimidating approach to the king sitting on his throne-the effect of two additional lengths was hard to imagine.

The exhibition was accompanied by excellent didactics. My favourite was an inspired version of the pull-out diagram from Pierre Verlet's important book Savonnerie: The James D. Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. The layout of the carpets for the Grande Galerie is shown through a schematic drawing placing all of the existing carpets in order. To see colour photographs of all the known carpets and fragments rather than black-and-white drawings was more than I could have hoped for.

I was amazed by the sheer number of people attending-Thad to channel my inner pushy American to position myself for an unobstructed view and access to the labels. When we returned on Friday evening at 10 pm for a second look, I was astonished to see crowds of people still admiring the carpets, and was reminded that the French truly appreciate their patrimony.

I am left to wonder; how did the two workshops manage such an enormous undertaking? The quality of the weave, design and the dyes are so superior to anything woven in France before this time. And how did the Savonnerie manufactures react to the fact that, after accomplishing this feat, the carpets would never be on display? Devastated is likely to be an understatement. Would Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Charles Le Brun also have had regrets? And think of the weavers, probably all women and children, who never would have seen them in situ anyway.

I only wish I could have reached down and turned over a corner of a carpet to see how the weaves differed from one to the next. It was very tempting without a guard in sight, but I am sure that, if I had attempted it, a proud French citizen would have apprehended me for tampering with a national treasure! As I was leaving, I looked up at the façade of the Grand Palais, noticing an apt inscription: 'A monument dedicated by the Republic to the glory of French art'. The Grand Palais certainly fulfilled its mission.

Jim Ffrench

As I approached the Grand Palais to see 'The Rediscovered Treasures of the Sun King' exhibition of the Grande Galerie Savonnerie rugs, my first thought was that I must be in the wrong place or that another exhibition was also taking place. The entry line stretched all the way down Avenue Winston Churchill to the Avenue des Champs-Elysées... for a carpet exhibition? However, when I finally got inside, I was thrilled to see so many people, including school children and TV crews and, seemingly, all of Paris (albeit, on my second visit, most folk were looking at the Louis XIV-period tapestries also on display as a 'backdrop').

I had travelled to Paris with great excitement at the thought of seeing so many Grande Galerie rugs in one place. I had been afforded previous opportunities in researching, cataloguing and selling a fragmentary rug and several fragments in my past life as an auctioneer, as well as having ogled singular pieces at the Met, Waddesdon Manor, the Louvre and Versailles.

My expectation was to see and enjoy these carpets in, more-or-less, their full glory. However, the reality of seeing the group together completely blew me away. Each piece is truly magnificent on its own, with exceptional weave quality, colouration and whimsical details such as squirrels, ferrets, weasels and foxes, hidden or integral to the otherwise grand Baroque designs. However, the true 'rediscovery' was seeing thirty-three rugs exhibited in the layout for which they were originally intended: laid out abutting each other along lengthwise.

The splendour of each individual carpet was amplified by the collective whole, metamorphosed into a singular, awe-inspiring work of art. While it may be sacrilegious to an Eastern rug afficionado, I can't think of any other style of rug that would benefit from this format- would showing a group of 16th-century Persian or Turkish court carpets thus be additive or subtractive to each individual piece?

Quite honestly, I was in such rapture that I contemplated risking a long French prison sentence by jumping the barriers. Promenading centrally down the full length of all thirty-three pieces I could then experience Charles LeBrun's original conceit of the Grande Galerie rugs to stand as a testament to the power and glory of France and the Sun King. After all, as the original commission was never installed, I might have been the first to do so...

To further put the rugs into perspective, I made a quick trip to the Louvre to walk the length of the Grande Galerie. It thereby became mind boggling to realise that the thirty-three rugs on display at the Grand Palais represented just over a third of the original commission. Kudos to Wolf Burchard, Emmanuelle Federspiel and Antonin Macé de Lépinay for creating and curating a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Alexandre Lafore

How can such a success be explained? Enthusiasts of modern and contemporary art could hardly believe it, and kept wondering why so many people were flocking beneath the nave of the Grand Palais to admire not Olympic Games events, Art Basel or Art Paris, but 17th-century textiles! Of course, there were many specialists present, fully familiar with the history and significance of the Tenture de l'Histoire du Roi tapestries, as well as the carpets commissioned for the Galerie d'Apollon and later the Grande Galerie of the Louvre Palace. For everyone else, it came as a shock-like a revelation-and the organisers of the event, as well as the teams from the Mobilier National, must be congratulated for so effectively managing the logistical side of the operation. Both beautiful and scholarly, the presentation succeeded in drawing crowds who had heeded the event's ephemeral nature.

On Instagram, it was a triumph: the social network was saturated throughout the eight days of the exhibition with images of the carpets' scrollwork as well as their grisaille cartouches. The event's success brought comfort to specialists in Old Masters, who sometimes struggle to attract audiences beyond connoisseurs to their often-demanding exhibitions.

Here, the overall effect was spectacular: all those who witnessed the installation of the carpets, unrolled directly on the floor of the Grand Palais nave, followed by the deployment of these magnificent tapestries, are unlikely to forget it any time soon. Their fragility, as well as their size, unfortunately prevents several pieces from being displayed at once, except in rare cases such as in the rooms of the Department of Decorative Arts at the Louvre Museum or during exhibitions at the Galerie des Gobelins.

As impressive by day as it was by night-since several late openings had to be arranged in response to the exhibition's success-the event managed to bring together audiences from both sides of the Atlantic. It benefited equally from the research of Wolf Burchard (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and that of Antonin Macé de Lépinay and Emmanuelle Federspiel (Mobilier National), work that one hopes will soon be brought together in a definitive reference publication.

It thus became possible to recover several missing fragments and to gain a better understanding of how this giant carpet was originally arranged-it was, sadly, never deployed in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, even though that ambition remains a dream to this day. There is no doubt that visitors were also moved by this story full of twists and turns, especially as the Republic, which successfully took its place within the furnishings of the monarchy, readily made use of these famous carpets, which remained at the heart of power.

Accompanied by detailed wall texts, the exhibition succeeded in telling their later history and in restoring a human presence behind these treasures: that of the craftsmen and craftswomen who created them in the 17th century, and that of their present-day successors who have carefully restored them. This human dimension, emphasised by the teams of the Mobilier National, was successfully conveyed even in the collaborations that made the exhibition possible.