ANTINOUS the cover boy! A replica of the famous Delphi Antinous adorns the cover of the July 2023 issue of WORLD OF INTERIORS magazine.
By sacred synchronicity, July is also the month this statue was discovered at Delphi in Greece. A well-known photograph was taken on July 1st, 1894, showing workmen standing around the newly excavated statue.
The similarly iconic July 2023 cover shot by photographer Matthieu Salvaing shows metamorphic rock forms stalagmites framing Antinous in world-famous interior designer Jacques Garcia's newly created artificial grotto at a chateau in Normandy France which he has restored and vastly expanded and improved upon over the years.
Like European monarchs of old, Jacques Garcia has a regal vision of the life he wishes to lead. A country seat of some magnificence was key, so around 40 years ago the Paris-based interior decorator, who is actually quite modest but visited lots of historic castles and manors as a child, acquired Château du Champ de Bataille, a red-brick pleasure dome in a vast park in Normandy.
Every few years, as time and money allow, he adds another scene to the domestic composition, another touch of extravagance: here a temple dedicated to Leda, a queen, whom Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduced; there a Rajasthani-style mini palace for entertaining that Garcia calls the Pavillon des Rêves and that incorporates Mughal architectural elements from centuries past.
Over the past decade, a grotto has materialized, an artful destination that he describes as "one more element which adds to the philosophy, the sensitivity, the poetry, and the sense of travel".
It is the latest extravagance to ornament Champ de Bataille, and the most dramatic: a brooding mountain of basalt-encrusted concrete that is almost entirely camouflaged with vegetation and perched atop a rusticated arcade.
Golden gates open to a descending staircase, and one passes into a fever dream of sparkle and shine, like stepping into a geode. Beneath a golden vaulted ceiling pierced by an oculus, silvery mirrors reflect rugged walls of channeled basalt and columns that are clad in annealed charcoal to mimic obsidian and crowned by golden masks.
A statue of Antinous along with statues of other Classical deities and beings are tucked into niches, striking alluring attitudes as they gaze on to a central space that serves as a theatre in the round.
Stalagmites of schist rise from the limestone, marble and red-brick floor and creep up the columns, framing a circular channel of rushing water. Even more stalagmites emerge from an exterior pond that Garcia excavated along one side of the grotto.
Delectably conceived and grandly scaled ... the heart of the grotto is 15 meters high, from floor to ceiling ... it is quite mad, he admits, but so is its inspiration.
The Venus Grotto at Schloss Linderhof in Germany is one of Ludwig II of Bavaria’s most superbly delirious creations, an 1870s fantasia equipped with a miniature lake on which the addled monarch set sail in a gilded barge in the shape of a seashell, the whole installation replicating a scene from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner, Ludwig's emotional and musical obsession.
Small wonder that Garcia and a former associate, Philippe Pottier, found themselves bewitched on their inaugural visit to the Rococo castle more than a decade ago.
Fortuitously, they remembered a neglected spot at Champ du Bataille, about 100 meters from the château’s right flank, but just far enough out of sight to establish a new garden feature that would come as a surprise to wandering guests.
Though the germ of the grotto was Bavarian, the interior is Garcia’s take on a French one, the Grotto of Tethys at Versailles, designed by André Le Nôtre in the 1660s and demolished two decades later when Louis XIV required more domestic square footage and the palace was expanded. Some of Le Nôtre’s fittings were relocated to the park of Château de Saint-Cloud, specifically a group of stone statues of gods and goddesses; Garcia had them replicated in plaster for his project.
Last year, to celebrate the folly's completion, he hosted a party where performers in Roman garb and gilded masks disported themselves as a counter-tenor was accompanied by a cellist, and champagne flowed (‘Très Louis Quatorze,’ Levy-Alban, who was in attendance, dryly recalls.) A concert has followed, as well as a choir event.
Château du Champ de Bataille, 8 Route du Château, 27110 Sainte-Opportune-du- Bosc, France. Ring 00 33 2 32 34 84 34, or visit chateauduchampdebataille.com
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