Hand-Painted Fine Art Reproductions of Famous Paintings

The Château de Versailles -or simply Versailles- is a royal château, outside the gates of which the village of Versailles, France, has grown to become a full-fledged city. From 1682, when King Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in 1789, the court of Versailles was the center of power under the Ancien Régime. Those who are not French tend to call it the "palace". In 1660, Louis XIV, who was coming to majority and taking on full royal powers, was casting about for a site near Paris but away from the tumults of the city. He had grown up in the disorders of the civil war between rival bands of aristocrats called the Fronde and wanted a site where he could organize and completely control a government of France centered upon his person. He settled on the lodge and decided to convert it into a palace. In 1661 Louis Le Vau made some additions which were further developed by him in 1668. In 1678 Mansart took over the work, the Galerie des Glaces, the chapel and the two wings being due to him. On May 6, 1682 Louis XIV took up his residence in the château. Furnishings had been plundered from Louis' own finance minister Nicolas Fouquet at Vaux-le-Vicomte, whose grand success there was his undoing.
After Louis XIV, several smaller buildings were added to the park of Versailles by Louis XV and Louis XVI including the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, and the Hamlet of Marie Antoinette known as the Petit hameau, which, in a way, is one of the world's first open air museums.