The Chinese sitting room of Philip of Bourbon
Inside one of the four corner towers of the Palace there was once the "Porcelains' room", which was modified in a Chinese sitting room by tyhe Duke Philip of Bourbon.
Salottino cinese del duca (1700)Reggia di Colorno
The vault of the Chinese sitting room of Philip of Bourbon retains its original multicolour stucco decorations. In the corners, as in the centre, there are naturalistic and illusionary motivs representing shells, fishing-nets, shrubs and marshes.
Salottino cinese del duca (1700)Reggia di Colorno
The wooden coverings on the walls of the Chinese sitting room are original and the wallpaper is hand painted, of European Manufacture, with oriental theme, birds ans ducks surrounded by flowers.
The grotesque room
It was once the antechamber of Duke Don Filippo of Bourbon. The ceiling is frescoed with grotesque animals fantastic and mythological. In the central part "Drunken Bacchus" and in the overlapping two scenes: "Hercules fighting with the Lion" and on the opposite side "A dying dragon behind his killer".
The Great Room
This room divides the duke’s apartment from that of the duchess. It is one of the first examples of neo-classical art in Europe. It was designed by Petitot who attended the French Academy in Rome.
The vault of the Great room
The vault’s frescoes represent classical and Arcadian subjects. in its corners are compositions with shells, vases, vegetable motifs and cornucopias with flowers
Allegories
On the long walls of the Great room there are female allegories depicted in bas-relief: fishing, agriculture and music on the side of the duke's apartment, and hunting, viticulture and dance on the side of the duchess’s apartment. J. B. Boudard and F. Rusca made the figures and the stucco.
Louise Elisabeth's bedroom
The multicoloured stucco decorations of the vault show in the four corners the monogram of Luisa Elisabetta and elements of the Bourbon coat of arms: the tower, the lion and the lilies.
The floor in multi-coloured marble, the finest in the Piano Nobile, takes up the motifs of the fleur de Lys. The small door in the main wall leads to a bedroom towards the courtyard.
Camera da letto della duchessa (1700)Reggia di Colorno
The Duchess' bedroom: particular of the corner with the tower, one of the elements of the coats of arms of Philip of Bourbon
Marie Louise' dining room
This room was created from two rooms of the apartment of Don Filippo of Bourbon, at the behest of Maria Luigia of Habsburg. Maria Luigia brought to Colorno 34 tapestries of French manufacture that decorated the palaces of Parma; in this room came two tapestries of the manufacture of Beauvais. What we see here is a copy of the "The Second Chinese Series" of the Gobelins Manufactory, now kept at the Royal Palace in Turin.
The vault of the dining room
The fresco of the vault was executed on a design by Giovan Battista Borghesi and shows a double marquee edged with fringes and tassels and has in the center a landscape with two female figures in exotic clothes and a man holding a drape.
You are all set!
Your first Culture Weekly will arrive this week.