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Thursday, 31 March 2022

A Renaissance Ceiling

16C coffered ceiling, Chateau de Chenonceau, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.

The ceilings in every room of the Chateau of Chenonceau are different from one another. The ceiling in the room known these days as the Five Queens Bedroom has a 16th century coffered ceiling (with decorative recessed geometric panels). It was originally in the anteroom to Louise of Lorraine's private apartments, but survived Marguerite Wilson Pelouze's demolition of those rooms. The ceiling panels may have already been removed and put into storage, as the panels from Louise's bedroom had been, or they may have been saved at the time of the destruction of Louise's rooms. Likewise it is not clear when the panels were put up in the Five Queens Bedroom. Decoratively they share motifs with the black and white bedroom panels, which also have weeping cornucopia trumpets as one of the images displaying Louise's sorrow at the loss of her husband Henri III.

2 comments:

Carolyn said...

Weeping cornucopia! Who would have guessed?

Susan said...

Carolyn: well, might just be weeping trumpets now that I think about it a bit more.

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