Gardens of enlightenment (1750-1800)
5 may - 27 september 2026
Grand Trianon & English Garden of the Petit Trianon
In spring 2026, Gardens of Enlightenment (1750–1800) will open, a major exhibition bringing together nearly 150 works — paintings, drawings, furniture, architectural projects and costumes — to reveal the originality and diversity of landscaped gardens designed in the second half of the eighteenth century. Inspired by a model that emerged in Great Britain in the 1730s, this new style freed itself from the rules of the French formal garden, breaking with symmetry and geometric layouts in favour of irregularity, the picturesque and a poetic evocation of nature. From the middle of the century onwards, this aesthetic spread across northern Europe in a wave of Anglomania that combined eccentric garden follies, philosophical reverie, a taste for exoticism and the search for an intimate refuge. The exhibition explores its many sources — from Antiquity to China — as well as the new ways of life it accompanied, oscillating between rural pleasures, festivities and contemplation. The exhibition route will engage in close dialogue with the historic gardens of the Trianon estate, offering a new perspective on the elements of its English garden: the Belvedere, the Temple of Love and the Queen’s Hamlet.
Curatorship
Elisabeth Maisonnier, Chief Curator of Heritage, Château de Versailles
© Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN / © Christophe Fouin
"Marie Antoinette" by Sofia Coppola
From 22 September 2026 to 24 January 2027
Petit Trianon
In September 2026, the Château de Versailles will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette through an exhibition presented at the Petit Trianon, a place intimately linked to the queen and the setting for numerous scenes of the film. Now a cult classic, Marie Antoinette profoundly renewed the image of the last queen, helping to shape a cultural icon blending history, modernity and pop imagination. Awarded the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 2007, Sofia Coppola’s distinctive aesthetic —combining historical rigour, contemporary boldness and pastel refinement — gave rise to a true “Marie Antoinette style”, whose influence is still felt in fashion, design and photography.
Deployed at the heart of the Trianon estate, the exhibition will invite visitors behind the scenes of this cinematic creation: original costumes by Milena Canonero, filming accessories, storyboards, annotated scripts, set photographs and set design sketches. Screenings will allow visitors to revisit sequences filmed in the very rooms where they were shot, offering a unique immersive experience in which the historic space and its cinematic reinterpretation resonate with one another.
Curatorship
Laurent Salomé, Director of the National Museum of the Châteaux of Versailles
Hélène Delalex, Chief Curator of Heritage, Château de Versailles
Yasumichi morita
From 8 december 2026
Appartement de madame de maintenon
The Japanese interior architect and photographer Yasumichi Morita explored the Château de Versailles over several years, through the changing seasons, to compose a photographic reportage imbued with silence, materiality and light. First presented in 2023 at the Chanel Nexus Hall in Tokyo under the title In Praise of Shadows — an explicit homage to the famous aesthetic essay by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki — this series draws its inspiration from the human history of the château: from the gestures, traces and presences that have shaped the site. Morita captures what he calls “the narrow space between light and darkness”, where the sensitive memory of Versailles’ interiors emerges. The exhibition presents a selection of these meditative black-and-white images, revealing an intimate Versailles in which plays of shadow and light become discreet witnesses to centuries past.
Press Release
Images
