Richard Mique
Richard Mique (French pronunciation: [ʁiʃaːʁ mik]) (18 September 1728 – 8 July 1794) was a neoclassical French architect born in Lorraine. He is most remembered for his picturesque hamlet, the Hameau de la Reine — not particularly characteristic of his working style — for Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon gardens within the estate of Palace of Versailles.
Biography
Richard Mique was born at
Mique must have gained the confidence of the dauphin and the dauphine for, upon the accession of the dauphin as
He laid out the queen's garden at the Petit Trianon from 1774 to 1785 in collaboration, it is believed (though without documentary evidence) with the painter Hubert Robert. The design — "one of the first instances... of pre-Victorian kitsch" (Higonnet 2002) — was based on sketches by the comte de Caraman, an inspired amateur of gardening. Mique was also responsible for the Hameau de la Reine, a mock farming village built around an artificial lake at the northeastern corner of the estate.[3]
During the Revolution, he was arrested along with his son as participants in a conspiracy to save the life of Marie Antoinette, whose favorite architect he had been. He was brought before a revolutionary tribunal and, after a summary trial on 7 July 1794, both father and son were condemned to death and executed the following day. This was just three weeks before the fall of
Pierre de Nolhac, the historian of the Château de Versailles, in Le Trianon de Marie-Antoinette (1914), found Mique to have been "un artiste savant, habile, et digne de plus de gloire"[4] A street in the city of Versailles commemorates his name.
Works
- 1762 : His first known design, for a kiosk in the gardens of Lunéville.
- 1763-64 Two gates for the city of Nancy: the Porte Sainte-Catherine and the Porte Stanislas already show the neoclassical taste..
- 1765 : Plans for the Sainte-Catherine barracks at Nancy.
- 1767-72 : Buildings for an Maria Leszczyńska. The convent now houses the Lycée Hoche. Mique's first two plans were rejected. The third executed design is similar to Jacques-Germain Soufflot's Church of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris.
- 1775-84 : All the structures, including the bridge, that form the picturesque hamlet, the Hameau de la Reine in the garden of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Mique carried it out in its naturalistic jardin anglo-chinois probably laid out in collaboration with the painter Hubert Robert; for inspiration, he was directed to visit the Anglo-Chinese park at Ermenonville (Higonnet 2002: 29).
- 1775-85 : Church of the Carmelites Maison Carrée at Nîmes, was consecrated 28 May 1784.
- 1778-79 : The private theatre of Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon.
- 1778-81 : The octagonal Belvedere (1778–81),[5] consecrated to the Seasons, the Pavillon du Rocher and the Temple de l'Amour[6] in the newly-informal gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The Temple of Love, visible from the Queen's bedroom, was the setting for many fêtes (Higonnet 2002: 28)
- 1780 : Hôtel de l'Intendance, Versailles
- 1780s : Château de Bellevue, alterations in the interior (demolished) and alterations to the park, which required 42,000 new trees and a hermitage, for Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV.
- 1782 : Consolidation of the tower at the Cathedral of Orléans (1782-1787)
- 1785 : Modifications at the Château de Saint-Cloud for Marie Antoinette (bombed by French artillery on 13 October 1870 and razed in 1891)
- 1785 : Boudoir for Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon.
Notes
- ^ He may have followed the courses of Jacques-François Blondel in Paris.
- Marquis de Marigny(Higonnet 2002: 26)
- ^ The garden setting of the hameau is discussed in Pierre-André Lablaude's book, The Gardens of Versailles (1995), a survey prompted by the replanting needed after the disastrous storm of 3 February 1990
- ^ "A learned and skilled artist, worthy of more fame" (quoted in Higonnet 2002).
- ^ A version of the circular Temple of Vesta, Tivoli.
- Musée du Louvre.
References
- Higonnet, Patrice, 2002. "Mique, the architect of royal intimacy" in Michael Conon, Bourgeois and Aristocratic Encounters in Garden Art (Dumbarton Oaks)
External links
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