Virtual tour #1

Follow us for a virtual tour of the castle. We will go back in time together. We will start with this watercolor which contains many clues to discover.

This watercolor painted in 1820 which is now in one of the rooms in Château de Canisy represents the interior of the Kergorlay « hôtel particulier » (mansion), located rue Saint-Dominique in Paris. This painting portrays  the decor – fashionable at the time of the Restoration period- of  the young Countess de Kergorlay’s  room, (shown to the right) represented reading a letter and seated next to another person more aged, the Countess de La Laurencie.

What is very interesting to note in this watercolor is first the refined decoration, very characteristic of this time named Restoration ( of the monarchy) , in contrast to the previous eras of the end of the XVIIIth century or the Empire, and mixing, as often in aristocratic houses of this epoc, contemporary objects with furniture and paintings from previous eras: as for example, the style “Retour d’ Egypte » for the bed – a style created in 1800, upon the return of Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaigns-, the presence of friezes reminiscent of Greco Roman Antiquity being very fashionable at the beginning of the 19th century -which adorn the wallpaper of the bedroom – , some  seats dating from the time of Louis XVI; and of course family paintings representing either illustrious ancestors or an evocation of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and some ancestors, victims of the Revolution, as well as. rural scenes, and scenes from the Bible.

But more interesting still and above all very rare, is the fact that this bed and some of the portraits or historical scenes  on this painting  remained all together in the same family and can still be found today in Château de  Canisy where they were brought by the Kergorlay family when they came back in Normandy..

Today, we can find this characteristic bed and some of the paintings in different rooms of the castle. We invite you to do this visit in a virtual way with us.

Check our next publications and pictures in the coming days!