(Pavillon des Armes) And its Egyptian Portal, Château, Fontainebleau.

1530-1535

Fig.Tour du Jardin, Egyptian Portal

The exterior dimensions of the plan of the pavilion, without the attached staircase towers, are approximately 23 by 11 meters.¹

Rosso’s authorship of the design of the Tour du Jardin at Fontainebleau and its Egyptian Portal was extensively argued by Guillaume (1979).  The attribution to Rosso of the design of the building’s unusual portal had earlier been suggested, but not defended, by Chatelet-Lange in 1972,² and was accepted by Babelon, 1989, 204, 206, Fig. top.  Knecht, 1994, 410, mentioned that the two Egyptian atlantes are possibly by Rosso.  Most of what follows is dependent upon Guillaume’s account.

The Tour du Jardin is the pavilion, now and at least since the middle of the seventeenth century called the Pavillon des Armes, at the north end of the east side of the Basse Cour.  Within the period 1538-1540 it was referred to in the Comptes des bâtiments du roi (see below) as the tour du jardin, apparently because its east side opened onto the king’s garden (Fig.Du Cerceau Plan Detail, Tour du Jardin).  Access to the four levels of the pavilion was originally through two large square towers enclosing spiral staircases attached to the east and west ends of its south side (Fig.Tour du Jardin Plan, Ground Floor).  The principal entrance at ground level was through the large door flanked by armless Egyptian caryatids on the east side of the east staircase tower (Fig.Tour du Jardin, Egyptian Portal); from this doorway one could not enter the ground floor of the pavilion, direct access to which was through two arches in its own east front (Fig.Tour du Jardin).  The ground level entrance to the west staircase was on the south side of the west tower under the arches supporting the terrace at the level of the first floor.

There are no documents related to the construction of this pavilion but it was already in existence in the period 1538-1540 when Claude “Badouin, paintre” was paid “pour ouvrages de painture par luy faits… au cabinet érigé pour ledit Sieur (Francis I) en la tour du jardin d’iceluy cha(stea)u, du costé et joignant la conciergerie dudit lieu [Fontainebleau.]”³  There are no earlier documents related to the building, but Guillaume convincingly argued that it was most probably built shortly after the purchase of the land on which it is built from the Trinitarian abbey in December 1529.  The purchase of this land allowed for the extension of the king’s garden westward, and it was at its new westernmost limit that the Tour du Jardin was erected.  From it the garden could be enjoyed.  Guillaume saw the style of the architecture of the pavilion as of the early 1530s and dated the building around 1530-1531 or at least before the period 1535-1540.  It is not clear that this need be the case, for the one document related to its decoration in this decade is within the years 1538-1540.  Nevertheless, Guillaume may well be right in recognizing its construction as dating from about the same time as that of the exterior staircase and portico in the Cour Ovale, which were commissioned in August 1531 (A.2).  Chastel attributed the design of that project to Rosso.  Guillaume saw in the Tour du Jardin references to Italian architecture and specifically to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s Torre del Monte that was at the south end of the Piazza Navona in Rome (Fig.Rome, Torre del Monte).⁴  This resemblance is with the west façade of the Tour du Jardin as seen in Du Cerceau’s 1579 engraving of the east front of the Basse Cour (Fig.Du Cerceau, Tour du Jardin, East Front; Fig.Du Cerceau, Basse Cour, East Front).  Both buildings show a massive ground floor supporting a second storey articulated with pilasters and a third level in the form of a loggia.  The Italian aspect of the Tour du Jardin led Guillaume to attribute its design to Rosso, who had arrived from Italy in the autumn of 1530.  Guillaume attributed the design of the Egyptian Portal to Rosso on the basis of comparisons with elements of the decoration of the Gallery of Francis I.  The pieces of scrollwork that substitute for capitals above the heads of the Egyptian caryatids are similar to scrollwork found in the gallery.  Similar paired and playful putti are also found there, as well as the use of a large Royal F held by putti (Fig.Left Pair with F; Fig.Right Pair with F; Fig.P.22, WestWall, b).  Two putti kneeling atop the leveled peak of the pediment hold up a large helmet, recalling the winged babes playing with the goddess’s armor in the Venus and Minerva (Fig.P.22 I N c; Fig.P.22 I N e).  There are no Egyptian motifs in the gallery but small armless and bare-breasted figures can be found flanking the Cleobis and Biton (Fig.P.22, V S e).  Guillaume pointed out that Rosso used caryatids supporting a strongly projecting entablature in his earlier Design for an Altar (Fig.D.38a), and it might be added that a certain disjunction of parts of that architectural and sculptural design appear in the Egyptian Portal.  In the Altar the second storey is rather awkwardly aligned with the lower one as in the portal the boldly projecting curved sides of the trapezoidal pediment rise – or rather spring – in an unprecedented and somewhat atectonic manner from the entablature which is recessed in the center.  One has the impression that the pediment – which shows a faint arched area within it – was meant to contain an image, probably in fresco.  An etching of the portal by Castellan shows a beribboned wreath containing a helmeted head — Francis I? — in profile (Fig.Portal, etching), the overall shape of which, however, does not match the outline of a surviving arch.  The whole conception of the portal suggests the invention of an artist who was not by training an architect and hence very possibly the same imagination that lay behind the architectural-sculptural parts of the Gallery of Francis I.  Guillaume’s attribution to Rosso is highly probable.  It can be added that while Egyptian figures do not appear in the gallery, comparable large supporting sculptured figures do, flanking the Venus and Minerva (Fig.P.22, I N a), the Danaë (Fig.P.22, IV S a), and the Enlightenment of Francis I (Fig.P.22, VII S a).  The symbolic function of these figures within the context of their settings must also be true of the Egyptian figures, perhaps in relation to the Roman helmet held triumphantly aloft by the putti at the top of the portal.⁵

The present pavilion is entirely faced with cut sandstone, apparently from the time of its reconstruction in 1728 after a fire of 1702 (Gebelin, 1927, 103, n. 42, and Herbet, 1937, 73).  Originally, it was most likely built of mortar and pebble masonry (moellen) and brick like the Pavillon des Poêles (L.42) and the still existing original north side of the Basse Cour (Cour de Cheval Blanc).  The original appearance of the east façade was probably as shown by Du Cerceau, with the ground floor unarticulated and without windows, the first divided evenly into three sections by four pilasters with a rectangular window filling the center section, and the second floor likewise divided by pilasters but with three rounded arches set on piers between them.  Du Cerceau’s print shows a winged cherub’s head centered above each arch of the second storey of the west side that would have appeared on the east and north sides as well.⁶  The attic has one dormer window flanked by pilasters and surmounted by a pediment.  The entablature above each floor has strongly projecting cornices.  (Today the left third of the ground and first storey of the west are blocked by another building, and there is a window in the third bay of the first storey.) The existing east façade has the ground floor again without pilasters but with two large open arches.  The first floor is divided in two by three pilasters between which are large arches, originally probably open, and now glazed.  Double pilasters mark the ends of the second storey with a single-pilaster in the center.  There are two arches, narrower than those below and flanked by piers slightly broader than those of the second storey of the west façade.  There is a dormer window in the attic like the one at the west.  The original appearance of the north façade is probably as it appears in Du Cerceau’s view of the château from this direction (Fig.Du Cerceau North View Detail, Tour du Jardin).  The ground floor was unarticulated like that of the east side, although Du Cerceau shows two very small arched windows beneath the second bay of the first storey.  The first storey was divided by six pilasters into five bays, with the second bay from the left filled with a rectangular window, and the top half of the third bay containing a square window.  The second floor was articulated with five arches, piers, and six pilasters, in a manner matching the appearance of the second floor of the west side.  From its present state and from what appears in Du Cerceau’s views it can be seen that the major feature of this pavilion was the loggia at the top with arches on three sides, to the east in the direction of the king’s garden, to the west with a view over the Basse Cour and what would become the major entranceway of the new château, and to the north overlooking a corner of the king’s garden to the northeast and, beyond to the north, the town with the surrounding landscape in the distance.  Although Du Cerceau’s views show these arches open to form what looks like an Italian belvedere that was almost identical to what was at the top of the Pavillon des Poêles, it is probable that the arches of the Tour du Jardin were fitted with casement windows as were those of the pavilion to the south.  The attic had three dormers of the same design, it would seem, as those of the east and west façades.  The south side of the Tour du Jardin was without windows and contained on each floor the entrances from the two staircase towers, except, as mentioned above, the ground floor that was not accessible from the east tower.  Both towers are the same in Du Cerceau’s drawing in the British Museum (Fig.Du Cerceau BM Drawing; Fig.Du Cerceau BM Drawing, Tour du Jardin)⁷ but slightly different in the prints, where the west one has an additional storey as is still the case (Fig.Du Cerceau Print View; Fig.Du Cerceau Tour du Jardin).⁸  It is not clear from Du Cerceau’s engraving how the corners of all the levels above the ground floor were marked by pilasters.  Small windows were set into the cornices separating the floors and into the walls.  The designs of the doorways on the south side of the towers may have been very simple frames as is shown in the one doorway that appears in Du Cerceau’s view of the east wing.  Between the two towers at ground level the south wall is articulated with three arches supported by four free-standing columns with discs decorating the fronts and intradoses of the arches at the springings and at the keystones.  These are now visible behind the altar of the adjacent Chapel of the Trinity.  Guillaume was somewhat at a loss to explain why these columns and arches were here and thought that they might have been part of the first and contemporary construction of the church that would be continued later.⁹  But it is also possible that they were to be part of an arcade supporting a terrace between the two towers from which one could enter the towers.  But Guillaume gives no other evidence for such an arcade or terrace, or related entrances, and it is possible that this supposed part of the project was abandoned.¹⁰  The upper parts of the exterior of the south wall were probably unarticulated except for cornices dividing the levels of it that Du Cerceau’s drawing and print show.

From Du Cerceau’s plan and views, from plans of the seventeenth and eighteenth century used by Guillaume, and from its present state, Guillaume showed the original disposition of the interior spaces of the pavilion (see below).  This is supported by the evidence of the eighteenth century plans in the Morgan Library.¹¹  The ground floor (Fig.Tour du Jardin Plan, Ground Floor) had an open gallery at the east that let directly onto the king’s garden.¹²  Behind the gallery was a large room, as wide as the pavilion and slightly longer than this dimension.  Two large arches in its east wall,¹³ matching those of the exterior wall, opened onto the loggia.  Probably, then as now, these interior arches were fitted with doors, most likely glazed doors.  Guillaume’s plan shows a fireplace in the center of the south wall of this room, the chimney of which is visible in Du Cerceau’s general view.¹⁴  The two small arched windows high in the north wall in Du Cerceau’s view from the north would have partly illuminated this room, although light would also have entered from the glazed or opened doors of the loggia arches.  This room was not accessible from the east staircase.  There followed two small rooms, a narrow one first, with a doorway from the west staircase, and one about twice as large at the west end.  Two single doorways at the north end of the interior walls of these rooms connected all three rooms on the ground floor.  Du Cerceau’s plan shows no windows in these two rooms but some light would have entered from the east through the doors in the interior walls.¹⁵  Guillaume said there were no fireplaces in these rooms.¹⁶  It has to be supposed that these two small rooms functioned in relation to the other large room and its loggia and that their entrances were for servants.

The open arches at the east of the first floor (Fig.Tour du Jardin Plan, First Floor) again created a loggia facing the king’s garden; this loggia was entered from the east staircase by way of the Egyptian Portal.  A large room of the same dimensions as the one below followed this loggia, again through double arches, which originally would have had glazed doors.  According to Guillaume, the fireplace in this room was immediately above that in the room below and was served by the same chimney.  The large window in the north wall visible in Du Cerceau’s view illuminated this room.  To the west were two more rooms, identical in their dimensions to those below them.  The very narrow first room was reached by the west staircase, which could be entered also from a terrace at this level to the south.  This room had a small square window in its north wall as seen in Du Cerceau’s print.  The larger westernmost room had the large window in the center of its west wall, as seen in Du Cerceau’s engraved view from that direction.  This room had a fireplace in the center of its south wall, the chimney of which is visible in Du Cerceau’s view of the east wing of the château.¹⁷  Guillaume saw this room and its antichamber as an apartment with its own entrance from the west staircase, which could be entered from a terrace at this level to the south.  This terrace and the entrance from it are visible in Du Cerceau’s view of the east wing of the château but showing two storeys built behind and above it.  These two rooms could also be entered from the large eastern room through doorways at the north end of the interior walls.

Guillaume thought that the east façade of the pavilion is its most original aspect, presenting as it does open galleries on the ground and first floors.  But his account of the building actually indicates how special it was in its entire conception.  The ground floor was directly related to the king’s garden, presenting first a small loggia from which the garden could be seen and enjoyed, but also a space of refuge from it.  An adjacent room allowed for more privacy, and also possibly for more extensive entertainment.  One can imagine that the two dark western rooms, entered from the other side of the pavilion, were used to prepare whatever was necessary for the events in the large one and the loggia, and in the garden itself.  The loggia and large room on the first floor allowed for something of the same enjoyment of the garden but they were more private, and the large room was more illuminated.  They were also followed by two illuminated rooms with their own entrance.  Although Guillaume saw them as a separate apartment, it is possible that the entire first floor was an apartment and that the west entrance was again for servants.  The belvedere at the top of the pavilion was one large area with two entrances from the two towers (Fig.Tour du Jardin Plan, Second Floor).  There were also a room or rooms in the attic storey illuminated by five dormers.

Badouin’s activity of 1538-1540 in a “cabinet” of the Tour du Jardin is the only reference to painting or any other decoration of the interior of the pavilion within the lifetime of Rosso.  Badouin was an assistant of Rosso’s and although it cannot be known that he did not execute his own conceptions in this “cabinet,” it is quite possible that he worked from designs by Rosso, as sculptors would have used a drawing or drawings by him perhaps slightly earlier for the execution of the Egyptian Portal.  One might wonder if Badouin’s work was related thematically to this doorway.  It is possible that some of the rooms were hung with already existing tapestries, which might account for no other mention of painting in the documents.

Beginning in 1559 modifications were made to the interior of the building, including the addition of partition walls and fireplaces in the belvedere to create a room for Francis I’s collection of arms.¹⁸  This room is mentioned as above the “chambre” of the “Connestable” (Anne de Montmorency), which Guillaume would identify with the “appartement” on the first floor.  Probably in the large room of this floor there was in the early 1560s the king’s collection of “anticailles.”  Dan mentioned Francis I’s collection of ancient arms and “autres curiositiz” that had been in two rooms of this building, which he called the Pavillon des Armes.¹⁹  There is no documentary evidence that originally the pavilion or any part of it was for the housing of the king’s collections of arms and antiquities.  But it seems an appropriate place for them in a pavilion that was primarily designed in relation to the various delights of a garden.  The collections would have been kept in the large room on the first floor, as the ground floor had too direct access from the outside and was too poorly illuminated, and the top floor was open on three sides and too unprotected from the  weather.  Guillaume, seeing that the pavilion might have housed Francis I’s collections, thought that the caryatids of the Egyptian Portal would have given an indication of the marvels that were to be seen inside.  It should also be noted that this portal led to the first floor.  If the caryatids suggested the antiquities on the first floor, it is possible that the helmet held by the two putti atop the portal indicated the collection of arms.  In 1559 the belvedere was altered to house the king’s arms collection, which would not have been in this pavilion earlier.  Thus it is likely that the helmet, carved from a separate block, replaced at this time a different object specifically related to the Egyptian caryatids.  The putti hold two thin rectangular slabs that seem to have no relation to the helmet above.  Terrasse, 1951, 57-59, and Fig. 170, wrote that the portal of c. 1530 recalls King Francis, who honors “à sa façon l’egypte millenaire.”

Guillaume related the Egyptian caryatids to the telemons in the Vatican that in the early sixteenth century were known at Tivoli as part of the canopus of Hadrian’s nearby villa.²⁰  Hence it is possible that the Egyptian statues were to be seen in the context of the garden at the same time that they indicated what was inside the pavilion.  The architectural function of these figures “supports” the latter conception, as with such large sculpted figures in the Gallery of Francis I alongside the Venus and Minerva (Fig.P.22, I N a) and the Enlightenment of Francis I (Fig.P.22, VII S a).

In the 1530s the Tour du Jardin was joined to whatever else there was of the east wing of the Basse Cour by arcades at ground level and terraces above them to the south.  It was, thus, almost a free-standing building.  Only with the construction of the Chapel of the Trinity against its south side did the Tour du Jardin appear bound to the east wing of the Basse Cour.²¹  It is possible that this was foreseen and for this reason it was entirely closed on the south side between the towers.  It was matched at the south end of the Basse Cour by the Pavillon des Poêles (L.42), the decoration of which was under way and partly completed before Rosso died.  Guillaume has shown how these pavilions, with others, and with the sides of the Basse Cour, created a new château at Fontainebleau that was linked to the old castle by the Gallery of Francis I.  This scheme must have been projected before Rosso arrived in France, even if not all of it is mentioned in the specifications of 1528.  But the Tour du Jardin may not have been begun before Rosso’s arrival, or had only just been begun.  Thus while Rosso may not have been responsible for its location or size, he may well have had a part in determining its final appearance.  This seems also to have been the case with the architecture of the Gallery of Francis I, the construction of which was probably largely completed when Rosso arrived at Fontainebleau.  The design of the Pavillon des Poêles, the west façade of which mirrored that of the Tour du Jardin, may also have been due to Rosso.  It, too, functioned to give views upon the special spaces – courtyards, lake, and garden – that its sides faced.  The Tour du Jardin needs to be studied further, in regard to its proportions and the design of its details – capitals, cornices, moldings (which might reflect the design of the original ones before the building was refaced) – and with respect to other buildings and architectural projects that can be associated with Rosso in an attempt to identify more specifically what part he may have had in its conception and appearance.