“Le siècle des lumières est aussi celui des couleurs lumineuses.” (“The Age of Enlightenment can also be the age of luminous colours.”) This phrase by Karl Lagerfeld ran throughout the boxset containing the three catalogs from his sale at Christie’s in 2000. On the time, he was letting go of 150 work and almost 400 items of furnishings, tapestries, porcelains, and gilded bronzes from the Louis XV and Louis XVI durations. These treasures had been all from the Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, the grand home in Paris’s Faubourg Saint-Germain neighborhood the place he lived for 3 many years. His love affair with the 18th century started on the age of seven, when he found a portray by Adolph von Menzel in a Hamburg antiques store, depicting Frederick the Nice receiving his mates, together with Voltaire, on the Palais de Sanssouci. For Voltaire, this scene represented the best of refinement, and for Lagerfeld, it ignited his dream of changing into an aristocrat.
Pavillon de Voisins, Louveciennes, France
When he was 81, Lagerfeld determined to purchase this bucolic residence on the sting of the Marly-le-Roi forest, not removed from Paris. To remodel it to his liking and equip it with each creature consolation, he undertook a huge renovation challenge that lasted 4 years. Ultimately, he solely slept there one evening. Nonetheless, he would typically go to Louveciennes, sit within the music room, ponder his collections, after which depart glad.
The home was stuffed with every part from Artwork Deco furnishings and German posters from the early twentieth century to creations by modern designers, a kind of compendium of all of Lagerfeld’s passions. All the assortment of 4,000 heaps was offered by Sotheby’s in 2021 to repay the money owed of the designer’s property, largely again taxes.
