Detroit Institute of Arts,
Marvin & Betty Danto Lecture Hall

Please join us for a lecture by Dr. Wolf Burchard of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“The King’s Carpet” was made up of 92 individual pieces that were intended to cover the entire span of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, six times the length of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Despite the monumental expense and energy lavished on this spectacular royal commission, Louis XIV appears never to have used it. With time, the notion of ‘one’ carpet was forgotten as individual pieces were given away, sold and even cut up, thus creating a dispersed jigsaw puzzle of which the pieces can be found in France, Italy, Denmark, the UK, the US and elsewhere.

For more information:

https://dia.org/events/louis-xivs-savonnerie-carpets-worlds-largest-jigsaw-puzzle