The Château d'Écouen is an historic château in the commune of Écouen, some 20 km north of Paris, France, and a notable example of French Renaissance architecture. Since 1975, it has housed the collections of the Musée national de la Renaissance (National Museum of the Renaissance).Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Le Guide du Patrimoine en France ouverts au public, pg. 333
The château was built between 1539 and 1555 for Anne de Montmorency, the Connétable de France or Grand Constable, chief minister and commander of the French army for King Francois I, and later for Henri II. It contains important collections of paintings, sculptures, ceramics, stained glass, furniture, textiles and other arts of the French Renaissance.
History of the château Records show that a fortress has existed on this hilltop site since the 12th century. The fortress guarded the Plain of France, the historic invasion route from the north. Anne de Montmorency, a nobleman, senior minister and childhood companion of King Francis I,Le Guide du Patrimoine en France, pg. 333 inherited the fortress in 1515. In 1538, the King named Montmorency Constable of France, commander of the armed forces, and the grand master of the household of the King. Montmorency decided to reconstruct the castle completely in order to make it suitable for receiving the King in grand style.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p. 333
The château was laid out following the plan of the royal Château of Chambord in the Loire Valley.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p. 10 It was set on a terrace overlooking the countryside below, encircled by a false moat with a fortified wall surrounded with bastions, probably symbolizing the Constable's role as commander of the army. The château was in the form of a rectangle around a central courtyard, with square pavilions on the corners. It was composed of two three-story residential wings, connected by a one-story entrance wing. Both of the residential wings had monumental stairways in their centers to provide access to the suites on the upper floors.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p.10-18
The Constable and his wife, Madeleine of Savoy, resided in the south wing, which contained their private chapel and apartments. The north wing was entirely devoted to royal visitors: It contained the suite of the Queen on the first floor and the suite of the King on the floor above. The top floors of the three main wings feature rows of lucarnes, or dormer windows.
Records of the construction have been lost, so the name of the building's original architect is uncertain, but it is known that the royal architect Jean Bullant, who later designed the Grand Constable's tomb, participated in decoration of the château, particularly in the design of the north wing's ornate neo-classical peristyles employing the colossal order, that face both the inner courtyard and the exterior north gardens. Bullant's addition of classical columns and entablature elements to the north wing is an early example of the merging of classical and medieval forms, which became a distinguishing feature of French Renaissance architecture.Rosalys Coope, "The Château of Montceaux-en-Brie", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 22.1/2 (January - June 1959:71-87) p. 77.
Anne de Montmorency invited some of the most prominent French artists of the Renaissance to participate in the sculpture and decoration. His chapel was decorated with sculptures by Jean Goujon, Jean Bullant, Barthélemy Prieur and Bernard Palissy. Some members of the Androuet du Cerceau family found protection and work at Écouen.Janet S. Byrne, "Monuments on Paper" The Metropolitan Museum of Art BulletinNew Series, 25.1 (Summer 1966, pp. 24-29) p 28. Much of the glass from Écouen is now at the Musée Condé,Chantilly. Michael Archer, "'Monmorency's Sword' from Écouen" The Burlington Magazine 129 No. 1010 (May 1987, pp. 298-303) p 301. and the east wing was paved in 1549-50. The building was frescoed and furnished during the 1550s, in the style of the School of Fontainebleau. No building accounts survive, so it is not possible to follow the precise sequence of the construction.A. Bertrand, Un château à Écouen (1974); John Cornforth, "Château d'Écouen, Seine et Oise" Country Life Magazine 12 July 1984, pp 164-67. However, panels of grisaille stained glass in the gallery of the west wing are dated 1542 and 1544, and engravings of Écouen were included in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau's Les Plus excellents bastiments de France, 1576.
The château remained in the Montmorency family until 1632, when it became the property of the Bourbon-Condé branch of the royal family. In 1787, shortly before the French Revolution, the original east entrance portal, topped by an equestrian statue of Montmorency, was demolished by the new owner, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, prince de Condé. When he emigrated during the Revolution, the château was confiscated by the French state. In 1806, Napoleon granted the château to the Legion d'Honneur and it became a school for the daughters of the chevaliers of the order.Visitors' Guide to the Museum of the Renaissance Eugène de Beauharnais erected the Fontaine Hortense in the park. However, after the restoration of Louis XVIII the estate was returned to Louis Henri, Prince of Condé. He left it to Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, on condition that she used it to establish an orphanage for the descendants of soldiers in his army, with his residuary heir, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, to pay for the running costs. She died in 1840.Victor Macclure, She Stands Accused (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1935), Chapter 5: Almost a lady Little use was made of the property until 1850, ten years after the death of Dawes, when Louis Napoléon Bonaparte decided to reestablish the school of the Legion d'Honneur there, and it continued to serve this purpose until 1962. In 1862, the château was declared a . In 1969, Minister of Culture André Malraux proposed that the château become the home of the collection of Renaissance art of the Cluny Museum, and in 1977 it opened as the French National Museum of the Renaissance.
The entrance wing and the courtyard The present neoclassical entrance wing is a late addition, constructed after Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, decided in 1787 to demolish the original gateway, which was surmounted by a statue of Montmorency, in order to have a better view of the garden. The new neoclassical entrance wing was completed in 1807 by the architect Antoine-François Peyre.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p.10-13
The central courtyard received major additions during the reign of Henry II of France. These included two new peristyles on the interior of the north and south wings, by Jean Bullant, installed to rebalance the facades after the enlargement of the stairway to the royal apartment in the north wing. These new peristyles were early examples of French Renaissance architecture, influenced by the Italian work of Bramante, and decorated with classical orders of columns and niches for statuary. The entrance to the stairway to the King's apartments was originally flanked by two statues by Michelangelo, The Slaves, which were gifts to Montmorency from Henry II. The originals are now in the Louvre Museum. The entrance to the apartments of the King and Queen is decorated with the crescent emblem of Henry II and the rainbow emblem of Catherine de Medicis.Visitor's guide to the National Museum of the Renaissance, pg. 2
Bullant is also credited with designing the central peristyle on the exterior of the North Wing, which covers the loggias of the monumental stairway. It has a classical pediment, large windows, orders of columns, and horizontal bands of sculptural decoration.
Interior decoration Much of the original decoration has disappeared, but some striking examples remain in the state rooms on the first floor, particularly the cabinet of the apartments of the King in the north wing and the library of the Constable, located over the chapel. These decorations include painted fireplaces that date to the reign of Henri II, featuring Biblical or historic scenes surrounded by mythical characters and animals, and cascades of fruit and vegetables. Notable examples are the fireplace in the Hall of Arms, illustrating the story of Solomon and Sheba, and the chimney of the Salle des cuirs des Héroes romaines, which illustrates the Tribute to Caesar. Other walls have frescoes of polychrome designs based on the constable's coats of arms. These heraldic designs, in color, highlight the more sober grisaille patterns of the stained glass windows, which are also from the reign of Henri II.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p.14-15
Some of the state rooms have sections of their original tile floors, made of polychrome faience tiles by Masséot Abaquesne. Some rooms, particularly the cabinet in the rooms of the King and the library, over the chapel, also have some of their original carved wood panelling, featuring the emblem of Montmorency intertwined with Moorish and arabesque designs.
The Constable's apartments and Chapel The chapel, on the ground floor of the south wing, was stripped of its furnishings during the French Revolution. The original stained glass windows and wood paneling are now in the Château de Chantilly. The chapel retains the ceiling of arched rib vaults decorated with the painted coats-of-arms of Montmorency and his wife, Madeleine of Savoy. The chapel has a very early copy of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, painted in Milan between 1506 and 1509 by Marco d'Oggiono, a pupil of da Vinci. It hung in the chapel during the time of Montmorency.Visitor's Guide to the Musée de la Renaissance, pg. 2
Apartments of the King and Queen Traces of the original decoration are found in the apartments of the King and Queen. The King's bedchamber still has some of the original painted monograms of Henry II, a crescent moon, on the ceiling. The painted fireplace in his bedchamber shows a biblical scene, beneath his coat of arms held by two cherubs. His bedchamber also has two tapestries from the series called David and Bathsheba.
Collections of the Museum of the Renaissance The museum collections have a history of their own, separate from the château. The first collections were originally acquired by the French state in 1843 from Alexandre Du Sommerard (1779–1842), Counselor and Master of the Cour-des Comptes, who assembled a very large collection of objects from Antiquity until the French Renaissance. After his death, these became the heart of the collection of the new Cluny Museum in Paris. Under the supervision of the museum's new curator, Edmond Du Sommerard, Alexandre's son, many other objects were donated or purchased, until the collection was much too large to display adequately.Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, Guide des collections, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, (2017), p. 8-9