Petit Trianon (The Temple of Love, Petit Trianon)

1902

Medium

Albumen silver print

Dimensions

21.4 × 17.8 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-867025

>This twelve-columned neoclassical pavilion was commissioned by Marie Antoinette in 1778 from the architect and decorator Richard Mique (1728-94) to adorn the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Derived from the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, outside Rome, it housed a copy of a statue by Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762) of Cupid carving his bow from the club of Hercules. Eugène Atget made another view of this garden ornament seen through a screen of foliage as well as one of a companion pavilion, the octagonal Temple of Music, which the queen had ordered from the architect at the same time. Like her nearby mock dairy farm and the Petit Trianon itself, these two intimate shelters were refuges from the grandeur of Versailles, which dominates the park in which they all stand. For other images of Versailles see: [90.XM.64.26](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JK8), [90.XM.64.28](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JKA), [90.XM.64.36](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JKK), [90.XM.64.42](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JKS), 90.XM.6.49, [90.XM.64.59](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JMA), [90.XM.64.62](https://www.get…