Joan DeJean's lecture will detail on how Versailles set the standard for interiors intended to dazzle, literally to stop visitors in their tracks. Behind the scenes at Versailles, however, beginning in the mid-1670s a palace revolution took place. It was started by Louis XIV’s longest reigning mistress, the Marquise de Montespan. The simple, relaxed look invented in the late 17th century was the polar opposite of the imposing grandeur de rigueur in Versailles’s grand spaces. Known as either “le style français,” the French style, or “the modern style,” the new look quickly spread all over Europe. In France, it remained dominant all through the reign of Louis XV. His own mistress en titre, the Marquise de Pompadour, still created interiors that were perfect examples of the first style seen as typically French. The French style was the first look ever to be widely copied: it thus made possible a new field, known as interior decoration.

Joan DeJean has been Trustee Professor at the University of Pennsylvania since 1988. She previously taught at Yale and at Princeton. She is the author of nine books on French literature, history, and material culture of the 17th and 18th centuries, including most recently "The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual and the Modern Home Began" (2009); "The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour" (2005); and "Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle" (1997). She is currently working on a book about the rebirth of the city of Paris in the 17th century to be entitled, "The Invention of Paris: Making the City Modern".

The French Decorative Arts Symposium is not only a museum quality program of the Alliance, but also provides funding for our Cultural, Educational and Outreach programming each year.

To read a review on "The Age of Comfort" by Joan DeJean , please click the link below:

The New York Times Style Magazine