The Domaine de Chantilly, a jewel of French heritage, belonged to Prince Henri of Orleans, duke of Aumale (son the late French king, Louis-Philippe). He was considered to be the biggest collector of his time.
The estate covers 7,800 hectares in one of the largest forests close to Paris. It consists of the castle, the Condé Museum, park and gardens, stables and the Living Museum of the Horse.
The castle’s Condé Museum houses an exceptional collection of more than 800 masterpieces of artists (Ingres, Raphael, Poussin, Delacroix …) and is considered the second most important collection in France after the Louvre.
On the first floor you can visit the princely apartments, examples of state apartments particularly popular in the eighteenth century.
The reading room has collection of 19,000 books from all over Europe.
The 115-hectare park offers a stunning panorama of 17th to 19th century gardens: the French garden (designed by André Le Nôtre in the seventeenth century), the Anglo-Chinese garden (at the end of the eighteenth century) and the English Garden (nineteenth century).
The Grandes Ecuries (the largest stables in Europe) is a masterpiece of eighteenth century architecture and houses the The Living Museum of the Horse as well as the well-reputed equestrian shows devoted to the haute-école art of dressage
The castle and its grounds have been featured in films, most notably, perhaps, in the James Bond film ‘”A View to a Kill”.
© Karen Gallo
© Karen Gallo
