Versailles: A Palace Fit for the Sun King

Larger than life: Art that inspires us through the ages

The palace started as a hunting lodge, became the royal residence, and then a museum from the 19th century onwards. It has 2,300 rooms. Thomas Garnier/Château de Versailles

From 1682 until the French Revolution of 1789, successive kings of France lived, worked, and held court in the most opulent of accommodations: the Palace of Versailles. 

King Louis XIV began the tradition after he expanded his father’s hilltop château, a luxurious rural retreat. Over a period of 50 years, the palace became the largest and most influential château in Europe and a source of great artistic invention in architecture, music, theater, and the decorative arts.