ARRAS.- Under a major partnership with the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region and the city of Arras, signed in July 2011, the Château de Versailles has engaged in a process of cultural decentralization.

Initiated by the Regional Council, this project is coming to a region which asserts itself as the Region of Museums, boasting as it does the Louvre-Lens, 43 museums labelled "Musée de France" by the minister of culture and over 150 themed museums.

Over a 10-year period, major and sometimes little known works from the Château de Versailles will be placed on public display in a series of exhibitions at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Arras, inside the Saint-Vaast Abbey.

With over 300,000 visitors, the inaugural exhibition "Roulez Carrosses!" (March 2012 – November 2013) launched and illustrated this extraordinary partnership with the spectacular presentation of the collection of horse-drawn coaches from the Château de Versailles.

Starting on the 27th of September, the Musée des Beaux-Arts is hosting a new exhibition which promises to be a principle event: around one hundred masterpieces from the collections of the Château de Versailles - some on loan for the very first time - will be on show in Arras for eighteen months until the 20th of March 2016.

Major pieces from the Château de Versailles' collections on show in Arras for 18 months
Paintings, sculptures, furniture, objets d'art... Visitors will discover works executed by the greatest artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made from the most precious of materials, like the bust of Louis XIV originally installed on the Ambassadors' Staircase, the monumental Gobelins tapestries, the Dauphin's fine writing desk, the original sculpture from the Latona fountain, Marie-Antoinette's porcelains or the sculptural group Apollo Served by the Nymphs, a monument of seventeenth century French sculpture.

These masterpieces line the visitors' route as they explore the various places and periods of the Château de Versailles. The exhibition is organised into six settings, constituting a veritable private tour of the royal residence:

• Setting of marble, bronze, gold and silver
• Setting of wood panelling and marquetry
• Setting of water and fountains
• Setting of parks and forests
• Setting of flowers and fields
• Setting of festivities and fireworks

Versailles is in Arras! Through trompe l'oeil scenography, the visitors will be invited to immerse themselves in the aesthetic and artistic world of the Château de Versailles.

The first setting will evoke the Grand State Apartment of Versailles. The visitor will be welcomed by the Bust of Louis XIV, created for the Ambassadors' Staircase, by monumental Gobelins tapestries woven in wool, silk and gold thread, one of them depicting King Louis XIV visiting the Gobelins Manufactory and by vases made from porphyry, marble and alabaster which normally grace the Hall of Mirrors.

In the second, more intimist, setting which is decorated with the most beautiful wood panelling and the finest marquetry furniture, visitors will enter the private apartments of the princes. Here, they will gain a sense the extreme sophistication of this world. Paintings, furniture and objets d'art will provide an insight into courtly life.

They can admire The Family of the Duke of Penthièvre in 1768, also known as The Cup of Chocolate, by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier the Elder, Louis XV's porcelain perfume fountain or the rocaille style desk which belonged to the Dauphin,
 son of Louis XV, a masterpiece of cabinetmaking by Bernard van Risen Burgh.

The third setting recreates the soul of the gardens of Versailles and the spirit of the creations of André Le Nôtre. The original statue of the Latona Basin makes an exceptional outing from the Château's reserves to be exhibited in Arras. The target of an act of vandalism in 1980, this marble group was placed in protective storage and replaced by a copy in the gardens. This is one of the most famous works in the gardens of Versailles, executed in 1670 by the Marsy Brothers (Gaspard and Balthasar) to decorate the majestic fountain standing at the centre of the Great Marsy Perspective.

Dedicated to parks and forests, the fourth setting will give pride of place to the sculpted group Apollo Served by the Nymphs, a monument of seventeenth century French sculpture. This distinguished ensemble will be leaving the Château de Versailles for the first time. Restored in 2009 and placed in the reserves for protection, today a copy has taken its place in the gardens.

The pastoral charm of the Trianon Park will also feature in the beautiful portraits of Madame de Pompadour and Queen Marie-Antoinette, as well as in the multiple floral representations of the fifth exhibition setting. Precious porcelains and furniture will punctuate the visitor's discovery the better to evoke this realm of royal women. Exceptionally, the Château de Versailles will loan its finest pieces of "wheat-ear" furniture; this is a set of furniture ordered for Marie-Antoinette's bedchamber at the Petit Trianon, its rural decoration reminiscent of the surrounding gardens. Of this extraordinary set, dispersed during the Revolution, only a few pieces were ever returned to Versailles and these will be on display for the first time in the exhibition.

Finally, how could one leave Versailles without evoking the sumptuous festivities that were held there, the fireworks that marked all the great moments of the Ancien Régime? These will light up the end of the exhibition.

The scenography created for this exhibition will transport the public back in time and into the various spaces of the Château de Versailles. Video projections, monumental back-lit visuals, pavings and parquets, the sound of playing fountains, the wind blowing through hornbeam hedges, fireworks exploding, the sweet scents of the flowers of Trianon: all the senses will be awakened in order to enhance this discovery and bring Versailles to life for visitors, just as though they were there.