Le Carrosse by Xavier Veilhan • Château Ducal de Cadillac

Until spring 2026, the Biens venus ! programme invites contemporary creation into the heart of seven emblematic monuments of French heritage. Born of a collaboration between the Cnap national fine arts centre and the CMN national monuments centre, this project weaves a unique dialogue between contemporary creations and the history and architecture of the hosting monuments.

As part of Biens venus !, the Château Ducal de Cadillac welcomes an essential work from the Cnap collection: Le Carrosse by Xavier Veilhan.

Presented to the public for the first time in 2009 in the courtyard of the Château de Versailles, this work offers a reinterpretation of one of Louis XIV’s state carriages. Calling upon innovative 3D-modelling techniques, the artist here applies kinetic and futuristic forms to this silhouette suddenly emerging from French history. 

A milestone in the artist’s career, Le Carrosse is emblematic of his explorations around the subject of perception.

Produced primarily from digital drawings, Le Carrosse constitutes the irruption of an immaterial image into real space. The force of this apparition results from a sustained tension between the image’s unreality and the materiality of a 3-tonne, 15-meter-long sculpture.

Expressing a notion of speed with its galloping steeds, Le Carrosse could also evoke Louis XVI’s flight from the French Revolution.

The colour purple, associated with royal mourning under the Ancien Régime, contributes to the strangeness of this spectral carriage, with neither coachman nor passenger.

Having initially been created for Versailles, then presented before the Metz Arsenal, the temporary installation of Le Carrosse at the Château Ducal de Cadillac clearly echoes the emblematic figure associated with the site of the First Duke d’Épernon. In the early 17th century, his carriages crisscrossed the French kingdom, travelling notably from Metz (which he governed under the title of the Three Bishoprics of Lorraine) all the way down to his château in Cadillac, his palace as governor of Guyenne. Symbol of his power, this site was the setting of numerous receptions and strategic decisions.

That was before the great lord knowingly failed, in 1630, to send just such a carriage to the port of Cadillac-sur-Garonne to welcome Cardinal Richelieu, accompanying Queen Mother Anne of Austria and her entire court. That crime of lèse-majesté marked the beginning of the old duke’s decline, until his death a decade later.

But that’s another story… to discover upon visiting the history-steeped château!