After having taken over the park, the horse is invited into the salons of the Palace of Versailles

What could the animal be thinking about, its gaze, where we can read a mixture of curiosity and worry, planted in ours? Signed Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), the White horse head well translates the fascination exerted on painters by these animals with enigmatic attitudes. The work is presented at the Palace of Versailles, in a teeming exhibition entitled “Horse in Majesty”, which explores four centuries of equestrian art, from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century^e century. It can be discovered in around ten rooms of the palace, along a long route marked by some 300 works.

Proposed on the occasion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (the park of the castle hosted the equestrian events) the exhibition survives Paris 2024 and runs until November 3. The flow of visitors should see a surge with the surprise arrival of Zeus, the silver mechanical horse whose gallops on the Seine enchanted spectators at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games: after being exhibited in the courtyard of the Paris City Hall, he will join, from November 1^er October, the palace of the Sun King.

The location probably influenced the curators’ choice to focus the exhibition on court life, art and war rather than on domestic life or work in the fields. The horse is represented with the same magnificence as the sovereigns who occupied the place. From the first room, several of them stand proudly, manes blowing in the wind, like Kortom, or carefully smoothed, like Sultan, painted life-size on monumental canvases.

Dizzying mane

These horses were the favourites of Charles XI of Sweden, who had them immortalised by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl (1628-1698). Louis XIV also cherished his horses – his stables had up to 2,300 – whose names, which can be found in a register of the Maison du Roi, reflected their character – the Commode, the Charming, the Pompous, etc. As for Marengo, depicted by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) on the famous painting Bonaparte crossing the Great Saint Bernardhe acquired a notoriety almost equal to that of his rider.

“The noblest conquest that man has ever made is that of this proud and fiery animal which shares with him the fatigues of war and the glory of combat. (…). He also shares his pleasures, in hunting, in tournaments, in racing, he shines, he sparkles”writes Buffon in his Natural history (1749-1789). For the festivities, the animals were luxuriously adorned, as evidenced by a ceremonial saddle in velvet embroidered with silver, a diplomatic gift from Louis XIV to the King of Poland, Augustus the Strong, and this other in silk velvet woven with gold and silver threads, offered to Charles XI of Sweden.

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