The Turkish Boudoir of Marie Antoinette and Joséphine at Fontainbleau

Ten years apart, Marie Antoinette gives to Fontainebleau two jewels made by the greatest artists of her time: the Turkish boudoir (1777) and the silver boudoir (1786). In these homes of retirement, the queen escapes the label of the Court and combines a fancy Orient with the expression of the most extravagant novelties. The craze for turqueries did not fade in the early nineteenth century and the Empress Joséphine moved a few years later in this women’s shelter offering a new sparkle to this universe of the Thousand and One Nights. She had a sumptuous and atypical furniture, which combines mahogany and gilded bronzes with lamé fabrics, embroidered and fringed with gold. After a painstaking restoration, the graceful carved, painted and gilded paneling of Marie Antoinette’s boudoir is once again the setting for Joséphine’s luxurious furniture. Nestled in a corner of the ancestral castle of Fontainebleau, the Turkish boudoir is the only decoration of its kind preserved in France and one of the most exceptional sets of furniture created for Joséphine.