page_title: Hall of Mirrors
section_title: Arts and decoration
hierarchical_section_title: Hall of Mirrors / Arts and decoration
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture taken inside Palace of Versailles in 2006.
context_page_description: The Hall of Mirrors is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the Hall and its adjoining salons was intended to illustrate the power of the absolutist monarch Louis XIV. Located on the ground floor of the palace's central body, it faces west towards the Palace Gardens for a complete perspective. The Hall of Mirrors has been the scene of events of great historic significance on a number of occasions.
context_section_description: The Mirror Hall's 17 windows open in the direction of the park. On the opposite inside wall of the Hall are 17 equally large mirrors, that are composed of more than 350 individual mirror surfaces. On the one hand, the mirrors had an aesthetic function, as the mirror image of the garden depicted the exterior of the castle into the interior of the building and reflected the candlelight in the evening. On the other hand, the mirrors also conveyed the king's wealth and the efficiency of the French economy in a subtle way. Mirror glass was an expensive luxury product in the 17th century and could only be produced with great effort. The manufacture of the mirror surfaces was the first major order for the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, a glass factory founded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the later Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, with which the Venetian monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors in Europe was broken.
  Much of the original solid silver furniture of the Hall of Mirrors, famous at the time, was soon lost, particularly the silver Guéridons (tables), which were melted down  and coined by order of Louis XIV in 1689 to finance the War of the League of Augsburg. Today's furniture was manufactured during the 19th century after most of the original furnishings were lost during the French Revolution.
caption: Sculptured Guéridons replaced the 1689 melted down silver furniture.
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