The Young Louis XIV's Vision for an Ideal Palace

A portrait of Louis XIV in his twenties hangs on the far wall of this room, with a painting of Versailles as it looked in 1668 to its left — a moment when the small hunting lodge was just beginning its transformation into a vast palace. Louis XIV had a deep fondness for the hunting lodge that once stood here, since it held memories of his father, Louis XIII, who died when he was still a child. Beside it hangs a tall, narrow painting showing the view looking out from inside the palace — essentially the king's own point of view. Gazing past the ornate gold balustrade toward the forest beyond, he may well have been thinking of his father, who loved to hunt there. It's a scene that hints at why, of all the places he could have chosen to escape Paris, he chose Versailles.