Robert Wellington
Versailles Mirrored: The Power of Luxury, Louis XIV to Donald Trump
Bloomsbury, 2025
Why has Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles, defining symbol of hedonistic opulence in 17th-century France and synonymous with the notion of the divine right of kings, continued to shape the aesthetics of cultural capital in the centuries since his death?
In Versailles Mirrored, Robert Wellington tracks this enduring fascination with the Sun King's palace through eight case studies spanning the 17th to 21st centuries. The book demonstrates how the extravagant palace style began as a symbol of the state in the 17th century; how it was adopted by the nouveau riche to show off their financial success in the 19th century; and, remarkably, how that palace look returned to play a role in statecraft in the hands of US President Donald Trump. Wellington links the aristocratic architectural traditions of France, England, and Germany to North America through the lens of Versailles, French architecture, and the decorative arts.
Opening with a brief overview of the history of Versailles and the political and cultural motivations of its creation, subsequent chapters address aristocratic buildings in France and Germany built by the Sun King's contemporaries; historicism in the 19th century in Britain, Germany, and America; and the present day, with Trump's buildings and Château Louis XIV, known as the 'world's most expensive home', purchased by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
In uncovering the motivations of those patrons, the book ultimately reveals why Versailles remains a powerful point of reference for those who wish to flaunt their social, cultural, and political capital.
About the Author
Robert Wellington is Associate Professor of Art History and ARC DECRA Fellow (2018-22) in the Centre for Art History and Art Theory. He is an art historian with a special interest in the role of material culture in history making and cross-cultural exchange. His monograph, Antiquarianism and the visual histories of Louis XIV: Artifacts for a future past, was published by Ashgate in 2015, and is held in public and university libraries across the world. Robert is also engaged with digital methods for art historical research, and is lead CI on the ARC Discovery Project: Performing Transdisciplinarity, a digital transdisciplinary study of an eighteenth century songbook. Robert was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2021.
