[OISE]. PIERREFONDS]. Model of the ruins of Pierrefonds cast - Lot 285

[OISE]. PIERREFONDS]. Model of the ruins of Pierrefonds castle Relief elements mounted under glass France, Pierrefonds (?), dated July 12, 1900 Dimensions : 630 x 800 mm. The medieval castle of Pierrefonds is located at the south-eastern edge of the forest of Compiègne. During the XVIIIth century the castle is progressively abandoned and will be abandoned in 1798 as national property, bought by Napoleon I who will make it return in the dependences of the forest of Compiègne. During the nineteenth century the enthusiasm for the architectural heritage of the Middle Ages makes it become a "romantic ruin" and will be the subject of many representations painted and engraved: including paintings of Corot who depicts the ruins several times between 1834 and 1866. The prince-president Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte visited the castle in 1850. As Emperor Napoleon III, on the advice of Prosper Merimee, he asked the architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc to undertake the restoration of the building in 1857. This was the beginning of the reinvention of neo-medieval architecture. The present model represents the ruins of the castle before their reconstruction and its immediate environment of farms and thatched cottages.