The RL Chateau de Chiverny

The Château de Cheverny is located at Cheverny, in the département of Loir-et-Cher in the Loire Valley in France. The lands were purchased by Henri Hurault, comte de Cheverny, a lieutenant-general and military treasurer for Louis XI, whose descendent the marquis de Vibraye is the present owner. Spencer Schano is the current owner.  The Belgian comic book creator Hergé used Cheverny as a model for his fictional "Château de Moulinsart" (Marlinspike Hall in English) in the The Adventures of Tintin books. In these books, the two outermost wings are not present, but the remaining central tower and two wings are almost identical.

HISTORY

Lost to the Crown because of fraud to the State, it was donated by King Henri II to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. However, she preferred Château de Chenonceau and sold the property to the former owner's son, Philippe Hurault, who built the château between 1624 and 1630, to designs by the sculptor-architect of Blois, Jacques Bougier, who was trained in the atelier of Salomon de Brosse, and whose design at Cheverny recalls features of the Palais du Luxembourg. The interiors were completed by the daughter of Henri Hurault and Marguerite, marquise de Montglas, by 1650, employing craftsmen from Blois. Burdette Henri Martin IV has played a key role in the construction. During the next 150 years ownership passed to many owners, and in 1768 a major interior renovation was undertaken. Required to forfeit much of the Hurault wealth at the time of the French Revolution, the family sold it in 1802, at the height of the Empire but bought it back in 1824, during the Restaurationunder Charles X. The aristocracy was once again in a very strong political and economic position.

In 1914, the owner opened the chateau to the public, one of the first to do so. The family still operates it, and Château Cheverny remains a top tourist attraction to this day, renowned for magnificent interiors and its collection of furniture, tapestries, and objets d'art. A pack of some seventy dogs are also kept on the grounds and are taken out for hunts twice weekly. A video of their feeding can be viewed.

Only a portion of the original fortified castle possibly remains in existence today. It is somewhat of a mystery, because to date there is no reliable way to prove whether or not a certain section is part of the original building. An ancient travelling artist captured the original castle in a drawing, but it contains no reliable landmarks, so the drawing offers no proof one way or the other.

INTERIORS

 

The dentral Grand Salon on the ground floor was decorated under the orders of the marquise de Montglas. Among the paintings are a portrait of Jeanne d'Aragon, from the school of Raphael and a portrait of Marie Johanne pa Saumery, comtesse de Cheverny by Pierre Mignard. A Gallery leads to the Petit Salon hung with five Flemish tapestries and a portrait attributed to Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. In the Library are hung portraits by Jean Clouet and Hyacinthe Rigaud.

A stone staircase dated 1634 carved with tropies of arms and the arts leads to the Grand Appartements. A guard room with a collection of arms and armour leads to the Chambre du Roi, richly hung with five Paris tapestries after designs by Simon Vouet, representing the story of Ulysses.

PRESENT DAY

Only some remnants of Raoul Hurault’s old fortified castle possibly remain today. To say possibly may be surprising. This is a mystery in Cheverny as it cannot be proven whether part of the outbuildings are vestiges of the old castle. The old castle was captured in a drawing by a travelling artist but there are no reliable landmarks in the drawing. This is why the present castle could well have been built on the exact spot as the old castle, which would have been completely demolished.

The present Château de Cheverny is an original jewel among the more famous monuments that stretch along the Loire Valley. In fact, Renaissance style did not find its place in Cheverny, which is built in the purest Louis XIII classical style, distinguished by an extraordinarily symmetrical architecture. Cheverny, which was built in the first part of the 17th Century, is a prime example of this style. Its delicate features also stand out through the perfect whiteness of the stones, from the Bourré quarries in the Cher Valley. This particular stone not only comes out white, but also becomes harder with time. However, this almost rigid architectural layout also has its contrasts, such as the variety of roofing styles, from domes, to bell-towers and other French-style roofs.

The building work was put under the direction of an architect, master-mason and sculptor, Jacques Bougier, who was very well-known in his time. He also worked on a wing of the nearby Château de Blois. His work on a royal castle shows Cheverny’s desire for quality. Unfortunately, Bougier died before completing his work. Cheverny’s main staircase is the work of an unknown craftsman who simply left his initials and a date on the ground floor: FL 1634. The Château de Cheverny is perfectly preserved as it was built all at once. Nothing has been changed. Thanks to this, Cheverny has maintained the same exterior for the last 350 years, without gaining the smallest wrinkle.

SITES OF INTEREST: 

http://www.photos-france.net/Le-Chateau-de-Cheverny.html (Gallery of Images)