King’s State Apartment

The room names move through Abundance, Venus, Diana, Mars, Mercury and Apollo. These are the State Apartments, arranged for display and court gatherings. A ceremonial bedroom could become a games room, while Apollo served as the throne room from 1682. Room functions changed with the occasion. Look upwards as well as along the doors. Gods and episodes from ancient history presented models of royal virtues. Large paintings and precious furnishings filled the rooms below. Much of the silver furniture was melted down in 1689 to help finance war, so the present arrangement cannot be read as a complete survival of Louis XIV’s rooms. Mercury’s bed was introduced during the nineteenth-century museum period.