The Chapel Room

This room originally served as a chapel. In a small alcove with an open door stands a crucifix, with a painting of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on the wall behind it. The wheat-ear and grape-cluster motifs encircling the ceiling and walls evoke the Last Supper. Once Mass ended, the door could be closed and the room used as an ordinary antechamber.

On one wall hangs a portrait of Marie Leszczyńska, the queen consort of Louis XV. Where queens of the era usually wished to be portrayed in heavy crowns and lavish gowns, radiating majesty, she made a special request of the painter: to be shown "not as a queen, but as an ordinary woman." The portrait that resulted is the very one displayed here.