Abstract
From 1833, Louis-Philippe transformed the former royal residence of Versailles into a new museum: the Historical Galleries. He gathered collections illustrating national history, from Middle Ages to his reign. To offer a proper setting, the architect Frederic Nepveu chose plaster as the main material of the decoration. And to do so, he hired the official sculptor of the time: Jean-Baptiste Plantar (1790-1879). As any sculptor, he used plaster as a sketch, but above all, he applied it largely in the mural decoration, even in key locations as the Great Battles Gallery and the 1830s Room. Plaster was also employed as a museographical tool to present collections, merged in an ensemble evoking their past eras. More than created an ornamental coherence in the galleries, Plantar’s works demonstrate the flourishing implementation of plaster in official architecture, and the means processed to show it.
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