MIQUE, Richard - b. 1728 Nancy, d. 1794 Paris - WGA

MIQUE, Richard

(b. 1728 Nancy, d. 1794 Paris)

French architect. He was the favourite architect of Marie-Antoinette and he is most remembered for his picturesque hamlet, the Hameau de la Reine, built for Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon gardens within the estate of Palace of Versailles.

His father and grandfather were architects and following their example, he became an architect in the service of duke Stanislas Leszczyñski, ex-king of Poland and father of Maria Leszczyñska, the consort of King Louis XV of France. Following the death of Héré de Corny, Mique participated as premier architecte in Stanislas’ grand plans for reordering and embellishing Nancy, his capital as Duke of Lorraine.

His official career in France was initially stymied by the influence of Ange-Jacques Gabriel, premier architecte. His main clients were a series of royal ladies. For Maria Leszczyñska, he built a convent, prominently sited in the town of Versailles, on lands at the edge of the park belonging formerly to Madame de Montespan’s Château de Clagny, of which eleven hectares were consigned to the queen by her husband, Louis XV. At the queen’s death, her daughter Madame Adélaide completed the project.

Mique must have gained the confidence of the dauphin and the dauphine for, upon the accession of the dauphin as Louis XVI in 1774, he was appointed intendant et contrôleur général des bâtiments du Roi; he succeeded Gabriel as premier architecte to Louis XVI the following year, thus overseeing the last works carried out at Versailles before the French Revolution. He purchased a seigneurie in Lorraine, which completed his transformation to courtier-architect.

He laid out the queen’s garden at the Petit Trianon from 1774 to 1785. Mique was also responsible for the Hameau de la Reine, a mock farming village built around an artificial lake at the northeastern corner of the estate.

During the Revolution, he was arrested along with his son as participants in a conspiracy to save the life of Marie Antoinette, whose favourite architect he had been. He was brought before a revolutionary tribunal and, after a summary trial on 7 July 1794, both father and son were condemned to death and executed the following day.

Exterior view

For the court, a country setting, life in harmony with nature, promised a release from the unpleasant reality of existence. An expression of this attitude can be seen in the buildings of Richard Mique for marie-Antoinette in the park at Versailles. A peasant farm complete with mill and dairy, complemented of course by a theatre, library, and a temple of love, makes up this fantasy scheme. Ideas which had been formulated in English landscape gardening were now taken up in French architecture. But the idyll was deceptive: these were the last building projects at Versailles before the Revolution. Only a few years later Mique and his patron ended up on the scaffold.

The picture shows the Queen’s House.

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Exterior view

The picture shows the mill.

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Temple of Love

At around 1770, new attitude toward gardens emerged. Gone were lines of tall trees framing fine horizontal perspectives of trimmed box hedges and embroidery-like flowerbeds. In 1775, Richard Mique erected a circular temple in the landscape garden at the Petit Trianon. Featuring twenty-two fluted Corinthian columns, fine decoration, and a copy of Bouchardon’s Cupid Making his Bow out of the Club of Hercules, Mique’s creation became known as the Temple of Love. This jewel heralded a new setting; the Hameau and its pseudo-rustic setting that Mique composed for Marie-Antoinette in 1782-85 represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new era.

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Temple of Love

The Temple of Love on the grounds of the Petit Trianon in Versailles was completed by Richard Mique (1728-1794), the favourite architect of Marie-Antoinette. It reflects an idealized classical antiquity.

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