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Speaker Series: The Story of the Château de Bagatelle

This presentation will primarily take place on Zoom, but the Field House Museum will host a small watch party during the event. Reservations must be made in advance through Eventbrite, by calling the Museum at 314-421-4689, or by emailing info@fieldhousemuseum.org.

Join the Field House Museum on Friday, February 25 at 1:00 pm for a Speaker Series that explores French aristocracy and architecture in connection with the Museum’s current exhibit on the game of Bagatelle. This talk will bring to life the absorbing story of the Château de Bagatelle, the eighteenth-century Parisian pleasure pavilion in the Bois de Boulogne once owned by Marie-Antoinette’s brother-in-law, the Comte d’Artois. It is believed that it was here the game of Bagatelle first acquired its name, an association that links the game to the very center of the pre-Revolutionary French court.

The château was the result of a bet between Marie-Antoinette and Artois, but its radical architecture and stunning interiors made it much more than a plaything. Bagatelle survived the Revolution and in the nineteenth century became the much-loved home of two more of the greatest patrons of French art, the 4th Marquess of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. In this talk, Dr. Helen Jacobsen, Executive Director of the Attingham Trust, will chart the life of the house under all three owners and investigate the changing interiors and spectacular furniture associated with it.

About the Speaker

Dr. Helen Jacobsen is Executive Director of the Attingham Trust, a charitable trust that organizes continuing professional development for curators and other professionals in the international heritage sector. She was formerly Senior Curator and Curator of French eighteenth-century Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection, London, one of the foremost collections of French eighteenth-century works of art, where she had responsibility for the world-class collection of furniture, clocks, porcelain, gold boxes, and gilt bronze.

She has curated exhibitions and published on French eighteenth-century decorative art and interiors. Her first book, Luxury and Power, investigated the material world of diplomats, and since then her publications have covered collecting history and decorative arts. Most recently, she edited Jean-Henri Riesener: Cabinetmaker to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, a new monograph on the Franco-German cabinetmaker, and she is currently working on Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Art, an exhibition which she is curating at the Wallace Collection in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.