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Origin and history

The music pavilion, also called the Ledoux Pavilion, was built between December 1770 and January 1772 in Louveciennes (Yvelines) on the order of Madame du Barry, Louis XV's last favourite. Designed by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, at the beginning of his career, this neo-Palladian pavilion was chosen despite the unfavorable opinions of other architects like Angel-Jacques Gabriel. Its location overlooking the Seine offered a 180° panoramic view from Paris to the terraces of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The works, led by the entrepreneurs Lefaivre and Couesnon, were carried out in only nine months, with external sculptures signed Feuillet and Métivier.

The inauguration took place on 2 September 1771 in the presence of Louis XV, with a play, a music dinner and a fireworks. The interiors, decorated by the greatest artists of the time, included bronzes chiseled by Pierre Gouthière and Pierre Deumier, paintings by François Boucher (such as Le Coronment de Flore), and panels by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, including Les Quatre Instants de l'Amour — finally rejected by the Countess and now exhibited at the Frick Collection in New York. Busts of Madame du Barry and the king, carved by Jean-Jacques Caffieri and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, as well as gilded woodwork by Honoré Guibert, complete this sumptuous decor.

In 1773, satisfied with her pavilion, Madame du Barry commanded Ledoux to plan a large castle to wrap it up, but the death of Louis XV in 1774 interrupted the project. After the Revolution, the Countess, guillotined in 1793, saw her property confiscated. The pavilion changed hands several times in the 19th century, undergoing major transformations: the addition of mansarded attices in 1871, then the displacement of 15 meters in 1929 by François Coty, who rebuilt it identically with a steel and concrete frame, thus saving the building from its advanced degradation.

In the 20th century, the pavilion was acquired by the American School of Paris (1958), then by Victor Moritz (1971), who held receptions with personalities such as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 1990, Julienne Dumeste, a furniture industrialist, gave it to its foundation, which undertook a complete restoration between 2002 and 2005 to open it to the public. Ranked Historic Monument in 1945, however, the pavilion was closed in 2019 and put on sale via Sothebys. In July 2025, it was acquired by Xavier Niel.

Architecturally, the pavilion is considered one of Ledoux's most accomplished achievements, illustrating neo-palladianism. Its original plan includes a semi-circular apse entrance, a square dining room flanked by two semi-circles, and a thread of three lounges opening onto the Seine. Subsequent transformations (surmountation, displacement, creation of subterranean dependencies by Coty) partially altered the initial work, but successive restorations preserved its essence.

The interior decorations, partially dispersed (like the woodwork transferred to the Saint-Florentin hotel in Paris), bear witness to the fascist of the eighteenth century. The more neoclassical paintings commissioned by Joseph-Marie Vien replaced those of Fragonard. Today, the pavilion, although closed to the public since 2019, remains a symbol of French artistic and architectural heritage, mixing royal history, technical audacity and heritage vicissitudes.

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