A mechanical table on the education of Louis XV exhibited at the Palace of Versailles

And suddenly, the dance lesson given to the future king comes alive! The Palace of Versailles has just acquired this mechanical table – a rarity – recently found in a particular collection. This copper oil of 58.7 x 67.5 cm, with a mechanism on its back, was carried out around 1720, probably by Father Sébastien (born Jean) Truchet. It had been presented on site during the 2022-2023 winter season, as part of an exhibition on the taste of “beloved”.

This work has just elucidated the existence of another painting, similarly not signed, preserved at the Carnavalet museum since 1897. He too represents the famous child, but this time when he receives a science lesson. Finally, we know, through preparatory drawings kept at the National Library of France, that there have been two other similar scenes, similarly animated and in the same format. The whole representing the various activities making up educational activities in the tuileries, an iconography hitherto unknown.

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Like a small theater, these paintings are revealed one after the other, playing successive acts thanks to a watchmaking movement: first dance, then fencing, then the sciences in the presence of the cardinal of Fleury, his tutor, and the regent, and finally hunting. We thus see growing and flourishing the young sovereign.

Learn about the “King’s profession”

The scenes take place between 1715 – year of appointment of Fleury – and 1720 – Date of the first horse outing of Louis XV. The year 1717 being that where, according to tradition, the latter “passes to men” and where the instruction of his “King’s profession” really begins. The Marquis de Dangeau indicates in its memoirs that, precisely, it was on May 7, 1720, at the Château de la Muette, that Louis made his first outing on horseback; The next day, he was finally allowed to gallop.

And this father Sébastien? He was a young Carme of Lyon origin formed from the age of 17 in painting and who was very good at mechanics. Before being admitted as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences in 1699, he had invented countless machines in fields as diverse as mathematics, hydraulics, graphics and typography. It was also partially in charge of the mathematical instruction of the grandsons of Louis XIV.