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# The gilded apartment of Madame du Barry on the upper floor of the Palace of Versailles
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/liudovik-xv-prikhodil-v-apartamenty-svoei-favoritki-madam-diubarri-po-chastnoi-lestnitse/
- Published: 2024-03-25T09:29:06.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:42:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Monarchies, Museums, Mores, Paris

Louis XV came to the apartments of his favourite, Madame du Barry, by a private staircase. The corridor leading to the countess's twelve-room suite is so narrow that two people can barely pass in it. As for the furnishings, Madame du Barry saw to it that her apartment at Versailles was gilded throughout, with paint made from ground gold alternating with a coat of royal white, a privilege that belonged to the royal family alone. Today the "royal white" finish and the rococo woodwork have been restored, and the colour, it must be said, is most agreeable, closer to the shade of rich milk.

The apartment of the Countess du Barry is one of the loveliest in the Château de Versailles, yielding, perhaps, only to the state rooms. In our day it is gradually acquiring ever greater splendour thanks to the continual renewal of its furnishings from the holdings of Versailles and to fresh acquisitions of period pieces, which give a better idea of the luxury in which lived a woman whose taste set the stamp on the aesthetics of the eighteenth century.

The Countess du Barry's apartments are on the upper floor, and, as in all private suites, the ceilings are low, since otherwise it would have been impossible to heat these rooms in winter. And if one considers that many courtiers huddled two or three to a room in almost unheated cubbyholes in the semi-basements of Versailles, then the du Barry apartment is an incredible luxury.

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