Robert de Cotte
Encyclopedia
Robert de Cotte was a French architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

-administrator, under whose design control of the royal buildings of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 from 1699, the earliest notes presaging the Rococo style
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

 were introduced. First a pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, he later became his brother-in-law and his collaborator. After Hardouin-Mansart's death, de Cotte completed his unfinished projects, notably the royal chapel at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

 and the Grand Trianon
Grand Trianon
The Grand Trianon was built in the northwestern part of the Domain of Versailles at the request of Louis XIV, as a retreat for the King and his maîtresse en titre of the time, the marquise de Montespan, and as a place where the King and invited guests could take light meals away from the strict...

.

Biography

Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Robert de Cotte began his career as a contractor for masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...

, working on important royal projects between 1682 and 1685, when he was made a member of the Académie royale d'architecture and architect of the Court, ranking third in importance after Mansart's seldom-credited assistant François Dorbay (Kimball, p 36f). On his return to France after a six-month sojourn in Italy (1689–1690), in the company of Jacques Gabriel
Jacques Gabriel
Jacques Gabriel was a French architect, the father of the famous Ange-Jacques Gabriel.His mother was a cousin of Jules Hardouin-Mansart and his father, another Jacques Gabriel was a masonry contractor for the Bâtiments du Roi, the French royal works, and the designer of the Château de Choisy for...

, he became the director of the Manufacture des Gobelins, where not only the famous tapestries
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

, but also royal furnishings were produced; even designs made under his direction for wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 balustrading are to be found among the eight volumes of drawings for the Gobelins, and for other public and private commissions, conserved at the Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale. In 1699, when Mansart was made Surintendant des Bâtiments, a position otherwise invariably reserved for a noble layman, de Cotte became his second-in-command in an executive function, charged with overseeing all the files of drawings, the stocks of marble and other materials including those for the royal manufactures of the Gobelins and Savonnerie
Savonnerie
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period ca. 1650–1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers...

, with overseeing the bidding process with contractors and with liaison with the Académie, of which he was made a member that same year. Fiske Kimball
Fiske Kimball
Fiske Kimball was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director.-Biography:Kimball was born in Newton, Massachusetts on December 8, 1888....

, the chronicler of the Rococo, notes that there are no surviving drawings by de Cotte from this period, nor from the period after Mansart's death in May 1708 (Kimball pp 61, 78).

From 1708, Robert de Cotte was Premier architecte du Roi and director of the Académie royale d'architecture. He was in charge of the Bâtiments du Roi
Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...

, which had been organized by Hardouin-Mansart into the prototype of all modern architectural offices, where the roles of director, comptroller, inspector, architect and draftsman were specialized, and the personalities involved submerged under the aegis of the Premier Architecte (Kimball, p. 8). The last years of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 are not on the whole periods of intense activity at Versailles, where the single great enterprise, already in progress at de Cotte's accession, was the Chapel, completed in 1710; there the decorative designs were actually the work of Pierre Lepautre, whom Fiske Kimball characterized as the "father of the Rococo".

De Cotte, with ever-widening responsibilities at Court, was also occupied with projects in Paris. His name is inscribed on the first draft for the final project for Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the...

 (1699). De Cotte was responsible for the Hôtel de Pontchartrain (Chancellerie, 1703); his team was busy building hôtels particuliers in Paris, notably the Hôtel de Lude (1710, demolished), the Hôtel d'Estrées in rue de Grenelle (1713, remodelled); surviving drawings for interiors are in the hand of Pierre Lepautre. De Cotte was in charge of the team that remodelled François Mansart
François Mansart
François Mansart was a French architect credited with introducing classicism into Baroque architecture of France...

's Hôtel de Vrillière
Hôtel de Toulouse
The Hôtel de Toulouse, former Hôtel de La Vrillière, situated 1 rue de La Vrillière, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, was built between 1635 and 1640 by François Mansart, for Louis Phélypeaux, seigneur de La Vrillière....

 in 1714-1715 for Louis XIV's legitimated son, the comte de Toulouse; the outstanding features were the grand staircase, in which several sculptors collaborated, and the Gallery (1718–1719), upon which de Cotte's reputation has rested, and which survives. Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette was a collector of and dealer in old master prints, a renowned connoisseur, especially of prints and drawings, and a chronicler of the careers of French Italian and Flemish artists...

 attributed its design to François-Antoine Vassé, and Fiske Kimball, on the basis of surviving preparatory drawings, concurred (Kimball, pp 117–8).

With the Régence
Régence
The Régence is the period in French history between 1715 and 1723, when King Louis XV was a minor and the land was governed by a Regent, Philippe d'Orléans, the nephew of Louis XIV of France....

during the minority of Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

, coinciding with de Cotte's maturity, the artistic lead in France passed smoothly in 1715 from the Bâtiments du Roi to the work being done by Gilles-Marie Oppenord for the Regent, Philippe, duc d'Orléans
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Philippe d'Orléans was a member of the royal family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father's palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres...

, at the Palais Royal
Palais Royal
The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace and an associated garden located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris...

 in Paris. No new architects were added to the rolls of the Bâtiments du Roi. De Cotte, one of Europe's most prominently-placed architects, served by a rigorously-trained staff, was free to accept private commissions, assisted during his later years by his son Jules-Robert de Cotte
Jules-Robert de Cotte
Jules-Robert de Cotte was a renowned French architect, the son of one of the most highly regarded architect-administrators of his era, Robert de Cotte....

 (1683–1767). Balthasar Neumann
Balthasar Neumann
Johann Balthasar Neumann , also known as Balthasar Neumann, was a [German] military artillery engineer and architect who developed a refined brand of Baroque architecture, fusing Austrian, Bohemian, Italian, and French elements to design some of the most impressive buildings of the period,...

, in Paris to consult him over the building operations at Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....

, found him and his son grandly occupied.

At this period, de Cotte was responsible for the Hôtel de Conti
Hôtel de Conti
The Hôtel de Conti, sometimes the Palais Conti refers to two Parisian townhouse's that were the property of the Princes of Conti, the relatives of the ruling Kings of France and Princes of the blood.-History:...

, rue de Bourbon (1716–19, acquired by the duc du Maine; demolished) and the Hôtel de Bourvallais, Place Vendôme, now the Ministry of Justice.
Outside France, de Cotte's team was commissioned for projects to be completed on site by local craftsmen. In Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, his team was extensively employed by the Elector of Cologne
Joseph Clemens of Bavaria
Joseph Clemens of Bavaria was a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria and Archbishop-Elector of Cologne from 1688 to 1723.-Biography:...

, for interior remodelling and a new wing, called the Buen Retiro, 1716–1717, following designs by Oppenord that featured reverse curves and garlands applied to mirror surfaces, a new feature. From newly-Bourbon Spain, the princesse des Ursins
Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, princesse des Ursins
Marie Anne de La Trémoille, princesse des Ursins , lady of the Spanish court, was the daughter of the duc de Noirmoutier and his wife Renée Julie Aubri...

 required his advice on the queen's apartments of the royal palace in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. An octagonal room was fabricated in Paris under de Cotte's eye, 1713–1715, and sent to be installed in Madrid. At La Granja
La Granja
La Granja may refer to:*Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain*La Granja de San Ildefonso, the town connected to it*La Granja, Chile*La Granja , a Chilean reality television show...

, an assistant from de Cotte's office, René Carlier, was employed in the designs for the parterre
Parterre
A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

s (Kimball, p 124). For the cardinal de Rohan, de Cotte provided decors for the Château de Saverne in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 (1721–1722; destroyed by fire).

With the death of Lepautre in 1716, de Cotte turned for the invention of ornaments to the sculptor François-Antoine Vassé, "responsible for all that is of creative significance in De Cotte's later works, as Lepautre had been in the previous period" (Kimball p 115). He died in Paris.

Further reading

  • Robert Neuman
    Robert Neuman
    Robert Michael Neuman is a professor of art history at Florida State University where he specializes in early modern European art, with an emphasis on social and religious history, gender studies, and the intersection of high art and popular culture...

    , Robert de Cotte and the Perfection of Architecture in Eighteenth-Century France, University of Chicago Press, 1994. ISBN 0-226-57437-7

External links

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