Guillaume Bresson – Versailles
The Palace of Versailles presents the first retrospective exhibition of contemporary artist Guillaume Bresson. A leading figure in French figurative painting, Guillaume Bresson depicts characters captured in the violence of peri-urban areas, with references to religious and historical painting.
Guillaume Bresson’s paintings are characterized by their realism. To achieve this photographic precision, the painter follows a process which begins with preparatory work of photography sessions with models in his studio. They thus lend themselves to the staging of their bodies, offering theatrical poses and movements which are reminiscent of baroque painting. Through montage work, the artist then isolates and detaches the bodies before rearranging them into groups. Guillaume Bresson thus constructs paintings in which body language occupies a central place in the creation of the story.
The exhibition will be held in the African rooms set up under Louis-Philippe, which house huge canvases representing the battles of the colonial conquest of North Africa in the 1830s and 1840s. In this face-to-face between historical paintings, notably by Horace Vernet, and the works of Guillaume Bresson, battlefields and urban guerrillas will confront each other and question the visitor on the notion of staging the violence in history and painting.
Guillaume Bresson was born in 1982 in Toulouse and trained at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Living in New York after Paris and Berlin, the painter is known for his resolutely contemporary scenes, which most often take place in peri-urban areas. Reinvesting a mode of representation from the classical tradition, long neglected until the beginning of the 21st century, Guillaume Bresson is reviving contemporary history painting by applying this mode of reconstruction of reality in his time. Both a painter and director, he anchors his work in the present, linking his creations to current social issues.
The exhibition is produced with the collaboration of the Nathalie Obadia Gallery.
From January 21 to May 25, 2025
African Rooms
Curator: Christophe Leribault, president of the Palace of Versailles
Genius and majesty: Louis XIV by Bernini
This exhibition will focus on the famous Bust of Louis XIV executed in marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, better known in France as Bernini. On the occasion of the restoration work on the Salon de Diane, where it has been exhibited since 1684, this emblematic work from the collections of the Palace of Versailles can be admired from a human height, as Louis XIV discovered it when she presented it to him. was presented in 1665.
This exhibition is therefore a unique opportunity to admire up close this masterpiece of 17th century sculpture, usually presented at height and at a distance from the public. Thanks to significant loans from French and international institutions, visitors will also be able to discover the context in which the work was created. Bernini was at the height of his career and was the most famous sculptor in Europe when Louis XIV invited him to Paris in 1665. It was during this stay that Bernini executed this bust which the Sun King appreciated. especially.
The exhibition will also present the personalities who made Bernini’s stay in France an event that was both artistic and political.
From June 3 to September 28, 2025
Dauphine Apartment
Curator: Lionel Arsac, heritage curator at the Palace of Versailles
The Grand Dauphin (1661-1711), Son of a king, father of a king and never a king
This exhibition will highlight a little-known character in the History of France because he did not reign: Louis, son of Louis XIV, born in 1661 and called Monseigneur during his lifetime, then the Grand Dauphin upon his death in 1711.
The exhibition will show what it meant under the Ancien Régime to be dauphin of France and will paint a portrait of the heir to the throne in three main stages which illustrate the famous summary that Saint-Simon made of the prince’s life: “Son of king, father of a king, and never a king.”
Themes such as the education and training of the heir to the throne will be discussed, as will his residences but also the fabulous collections with which the prince surrounded himself thanks in particular to spectacular loans from the Prado Museum in Madrid.
The Grand Dauphin has an important place within the Bourbon dynasty. Heir to the throne, grandfather of Louis XV and great-great-grandfather of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles ‘today.
Around 250 works, some previously unpublished, from public and private collections, French and international, illustrating all artistic disciplines (paintings, sculptures, art objects, manuscripts and graphic arts, etc.) will tell the story of this prince that Louis XIV had imagined his worthy heir.
From October 14, 2025 to February 15, 2026
Curator: Lionel Arsac, heritage curator at the Palace of Versailles
1725. Native American allies at the court of Louis XV.
The exhibition is a dive into the little-known world of the indigenous societies of the Mississippi Valley which, at the turn of the 18the century, at the very time when the French were establishing themselves in this vast region that they called “Louisiana”. The latter must then adapt to Amerindian standards of diplomacy and, gradually, the French presence in the region is based on an economic, military and political alliance with several indigenous nations.
One of the most emblematic and spectacular moments of this alliance was the arrival in France of Oto, Osage, Missouri and Illinois chiefs, in the fall of 1725, at the joint request of the East India Company and the young Louis XV. This episode, described in detail in the Mercure de France, will be recounted in the exhibition.
Exceptional works will be presented, such as maps of Louisiana produced in Paris and America in the 18th century, little known and some of them never exhibited. Artifacts produced by these Native American nations in the 18th century and preserved today at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum will be on display. Absolutely unique, these are the oldest surviving works from the Mississippi Valley in the world. Today, as a testimony to this visit, we are left with a masterpiece of French music, Rameau’s Indes galantes.
From the banks of the Mississippi to the court, the exhibition retraces this extraordinary human adventure which constitutes not only a journey between two continents, but, above all, a journey between two worlds which knew how to understand each other.
Exhibition produced in partnership with the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum.
From November 25, 2025 to May 3, 2026
Dauphine Apartment
Curator: Bertrand Rondot, general curator at the Palace of Versailles and Paz Núñez-Regueiro, chief curator at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum
Exhibitions outside the walls
Londres, Science Museum
Versailles : Science and splendour
From December 12, 2024 to April 21, 2025
This exhibition, presented in London with the scientific collaboration of the Palace of Versailles, lifts the veil on the major role of science at the court of Versailles in the 17th and 18th centuries. More than a hundred works will be presented, including around forty from the Versailles collections (paintings, art objects, graphic arts, etc.), some never before exhibited in the United Kingdom.
The exhibition will reveal how Versailles, a major place of scientific experimentation for its construction, also became a place of research for the pleasure of the king (in zoology or botany, for example), and the scene of major demonstrations which marked the court ; like the first flight of the hot air balloon in the courtyard of the Château in 1783….
For a few months, in London, a little-known Versailles emerged; a world of science and knowledge, far from the image of futility and lightness traditionally associated with the court of France, under the Ancien Régime.
Hong Kong, Palace Museum
The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles, exchanges between China and France in the 17th centurye and 18e centuries
From December 18, 2024 to May 4, 2025
This exhibition, which extends the one held in 2024 at the Forbidden City, highlights the privileged relations maintained under the Ancien Régime between China and France, between artistic and cultural exchanges and the sharing of scientific knowledge. .
The exhibition will highlight the diplomatic policy undertaken by Louis XIV towards the Kangxi Emperor. Indeed, in 1685, French Jesuit fathers were sent to China and joined the court of Beijing as mathematicians to the King. This initiative made it possible to establish relations of trust and mutual respect between the two countries which lasted until the end of the 18th century.e century.
At the French court, the enthusiasm for China and its art manifested itself through four main phenomena: the importation of Chinese art objects, the transformation of certain imported works – such as the addition of frames in gilded bronze on porcelain or the use of lacquer panels for French furniture -, the imitation of Chinese products, illustrated by the frantic quest for the secret of manufacturing kaolin porcelain, and the marked influence of Chinese art on French art, particularly in the field of decorative arts.
A large selection of masterpieces, most of them from the collections of the Palace of Versailles and the Palace Museum in Beijing, will illustrate the fascination that China and France developed for each other in the 17th century.e and 18e centuries.
Castle Houses
Center of National Monuments
The Count of Artois, prince and patron
From November 14, 2025 to March 2, 2026 (provisional dates)
The exhibition will look back on the youth of the future Charles X, from his birth to his departure into exile in 1789.
It will be an evocation addressing some of the facets of the character thanks to around a hundred works and various documents coming mainly from the collections of the Palace of Versailles but also from other major public collections. It will be held in the imposing setting of the Château de Maisons, whose embellishment François-Joseph Bélanger undertook – without however completing – at the request of the prince who acquired it in 1777.
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