L’Orangerie

Acrylic on paper

24″ x 16″

featured in the Curio Card Club

King Louis XIV, the sun king, loved his gardens and l’orangerie was the crown jewel of the masterful landscaping at the Palace of Versailles. A proto-greenhouse, the orangerie remains the winter home of the palaces’ more-than-1000 citrus trees, many of which are hundreds of years old. It is made up of three wings buried into the earth, surrounding an open courtyard. The central wing is over 150 m long, has a ceiling height of 13 m, and walls 4-5m thick. The mass and double-paned windows (an immense expense and new technology at the time) ensured the interior never dipped below 5°C, protecting the Mediterranean trees from frost. ‘Winter home’ implies the trees are not there year round, and indeed they aren’t. Every spring the trees, in their iconic teal boxes, migrate to the sunny courtyard where they soak up the summer sun among the fountains, parterres, and many, many tourists.