The Making of the Museum of the Château de Versailles

Russell Kelley will explain how the Museum of the Château de Versailles is in fact two museums in one – the first dedicated to the history of France and the second to the royal residence of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI during the roughly 100 years leading up to the Revolution. The Museum of French History, with its impressive Gallery of Great Battles, was inaugurated by Louis-Philippe in 1837 and developed over the course of the 19th century. The “house museum” of the residence of the last three kings of the Ancien Régime, with its spectacular Hall of Mirrors and sumptuous apartments, is the product of the vision of a series of dedicated curators, supported by the French state and by generous private donors – many of them American – starting in 1892 and still continuing today.

Every Thursday at 12pm Central Time in Chicago/1 pm Eastern Time in Miami/19h Central European Time in Paris – From January 11 through February 22, 2024

Following the success of Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Ile-de-France, The Making of the French Gardens and The Great Churches of Paris series of online talks, our curator extraordinaire, Russell Kelley returns to offer an enthralling new series about an essential pillar of France’s cultural heritage: the extraordinary museums that were established in Paris starting during the Revolution and continuing through the end of the 19th century. We know you will love The Making of the Great Museums of Paris!

Russell Kelley is the curator and moderator of the past three winter’s Zoom lecture series on the Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Ile-de-France , The Making of the French Gardens and The Great Churches of Paris. He has lived in Paris for 30 years and is the author of The Making of Paris: The Story of How Paris Evolved from a Fishing Village into the World’s Most Beautiful City (Globe Pequot Press, 2021), and has lived in Paris for 30 years.

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*Through our Entrée Libre initiative, free admission to this series is offered to students enrolled in French Studies in universities and French schools in Chicago and the Midwest. Students MUST register with .edu address