Opening on September 8th, 2026, an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will explore the story of the 20-years production of the fine carpets made in Europe. A King’s Carpet - Louis XIV and the Savonnerie will present elements of the tapis du roi, an enormous carpet composed of 92 individual pieces that were intended to cover the complete span of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre in Paris, six times the length of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The 92 carpets were commissioned by King Louis XIV and his all-powerful minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the intended purpose of welcoming the highest dignitaries to the Sun King’s glittering court with an impressive display of luxury and splendor, though this vision was never fully realized. Shedding new light on three significant Savonnerie carpets in The Met’s collection that were made as part of Louis XIV’s ambitious Grande Galerie project, A King’s Carpet will also bring a small but important group of loans into the Wrightsman Period Rooms. The exhibition will be on view till March 5th, 2028.
The exhibition is made possible in part by Hubert and Mireille Goldschmidt.
“A King’s Carpet highlights a royal commission of large scale,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO. “Telling complex and intertwined stories of a king’s superlative ambition and of the weavers who translated an opulent vision into reality, this exhibition brings to the fore the creative genius, technological innovation and vast labour force demanded by Louis XIV’s zeal to produce the largest carpet the world had ever seen.”
“The story of Louis XIV’s Savonnerie carpets for the Louvre’s Grande Galerie is a unique chapter in the history of art,” said Wolf Burchard, Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. “The sophistication and unimaginable scale of this royal commission make these carpets a tangible reflection of the Sun King’s grandiose ambitions. Over more than 20 years, Louis XIV’s government lavished huge sums on the weaving of these exceptional Baroque masterpieces, which were relegated to storage for much of the 18th century, before being dispersed after the French Revolution. Three carpets found their way into The Met collection, and we are delighted to be able to share their tumultuous stories with our public in the first ever exhibition about the Savonnerie in the United States.”
Elizabeth Cleland, Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts said, “In 17th-century Europe up to this point, fine carpets had been almost exclusively silk low-pile imported from western Asia and north Africa, mostly intimate-scale precious ornamentation for furniture or placed underfoot in only the richest of domestic spaces. In contrast, Louis XIV’s Grande Galerie scheme sought to astound courtiers, ambassadors, and visiting dignitaries by inviting them to walk upon lusciously thick, deep-pile carpets as far as the eye could see. Visitors to The Met’s exhibition will encounter a nuanced and rich narrative, interweaving accounts of the carpet’s makers, raw materials, and technical innovations with the wider story of French global ambitions and messaging overseas.”
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