Off-site exhibition Versailles: Science and Splendour

From 12 December 2024 to 21 April 2025, the Science Museum in London is hosting the exhibition Versailles: Science and Splendour, which has been developed with scientific support from the Palace of Versailles. Over one hundred exhibits, some forty of which are from the collections at Versailles, will be assembled to provide an insight into the major role played by science at the court of Versailles in the 17th and 18th centuries.

THE EXHIBITION

For several months, a lesser-known aspect of Versailles will be brought back to life at the heart of the Science Museum in London, showcasing a world of science and knowledge totally at odds with the traditional image of the French court under the Ancien Régime as a place of superficiality and frivolity. Versailles: Science and Splendour revisits, through some one hundred exhibits, the exhibition Sciences and Curiosities of Versailles, which was held in 2010 at the Palace of Versailles, and curated by Béatrix Saule, former director of the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon. 

Science as an instrument of power

In the reign of Louis XIV, the development of scientific knowledge was considered to be a tool for extending the prestige and influence of the sovereign and kingdom. The Sun King and his successors championed scientific research (notably through the creation of the Academy of Sciences by Louis XIV in 1666), and Louis XV and Louis XVI even developed a personal interest in the sciences, which they pursued in their private workrooms.

The exhibition reveals how Versailles, which was already a beacon of scientific experimentation by virtue of its construction (plotting out the estate and its perspectives, installing a hydraulic system on an unprecedented scale for the era), became a focal point for scientific research. This included projects for the king’s enjoyment (in the fields of zoology and botany, for example), but also major demonstrations which made a profound impression on the court, such as the experiment featuring a burning mirror witnessed by Louis XIV in 1669, and the first hot-air balloon flight in the Palace courtyard in 1783.

Key players in the scientific revolution

The exhibition also looks back at major scientific advances in the 17th and 18th centuries through the men and women who pioneered progress in their own disciplines. In the field of medicine, we will meet Madame du Coudray, one of the first midwives to teach the mechanics of giving birth to her fellow practitioners in order to reduce infant mortality. Visitors will also learn about significant figures at the Palace of Versailles and in the wider kingdom, such as the French navigator and explorer La Pérouse who had a profond impact on cartography with the expedition which he led in 1785 on the orders of Louis XVI, and also Abbé Nollet, a physicist and tutor to the Royal Children, who delighted the court with his experiments with electricity.

Innovative masterpieces 

Versailles: Science and Splendour offers a unique opportunity to discover over one hundred works – paintings, objets d’art, works on paper and also magnificent scientific objects and instruments – some forty of which are from the collections at Versailles. Many artefacts have never been exhibited in the United Kingdom before, including Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s Pineapple in a Pot, and Louis XV’s rhinoceros which is on loan from the French National Natural History Museum in Paris. Visitors will be able to admire masterpieces from Versailles, such as Louis XV’s optical microscope created by Claude-Siméon Passemant, the master craftsman who also produced the Clock of the “Creation of the World”, the map of the moon drawn by the astronomer Cassini, and Madame du Coudray’s midwifery teaching mannequin.

Some works of art 

Exhibition curators

Anna Ferrari, Lead Curator. 

Expert advisor, the Palace of Versailles.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Exhibition dates: 12 December 2024 to 21 April 2025 at the Science Museum, London, UK  

Address: Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DD

Opening times: 10am to 6pm daily

Ticket prices: £12, children 11 and under go free