High Artistry A Journey through Château de Versailles Limited Edition 195

It is almost impossible to imagine Versailles without its magnificent gardens. With the A Journey through Château de Versailles Collection, Montblanc takes a tour through this baroque masterpiece in celebration of the Versailles World Heritage Site. The Limited Edition 195 honours, in particular, the royal gardens and the orangery, which was of such great importance to the king. Only when the estate is considered in its entirety does the Sun King’s unwavering ambition become clear: to create a symbiosis of beauty and geometric precision. Renowned landscape architects were commissioned to design and build a garden that would put all others in the shade. What was once marshland was transformed into a perfectly orchestrated spectacle of water features and groves, ornamental flower beds, elaborate fountains, water jets, marble sculptures and opulently decorated vases. It gave the king immense pleasure to stroll through his garden, and there was one part he was especially fond of: the orangery. His great passion for perfume, especially the scent of orange blossom, led him to bring together most of the orange trees from the royal houses and acquire a large number of new ones from Italy, Spain and Portugal. Protected from the cold winter weather, the trees flourished in the huge orangery – one of the reasons why the French court was known throughout Europe at the time as ‘the perfumed court’. Borrowing its pattern and colour scheme from the symmetrical royal gardens, the design of this edition combines an elaborate skeleton overlay made of solid Au 750 signature gold with green aventurine shimmering beneath. The centrepiece of the barrel, a garnet cabochon, is encircled by a delicate flower engraving. A touch of the orangery is brought to this edition not only through the pattern on the cone, which is inspired by the vases in the orangery, but also through the embossing on the handcrafted, solid Au 750 gold nib. It depicts one of the historical planting pots, which skirted the flower beds in the summer months and showcased the king’s treasured citrus trees. In honour of the ‘Sun King’, as the monarch has subsequently been referred to, the image of the sun is encountered throughout the palace in numerous representations and allegorical allusions to the ancient Greek god. The sun also takes centre stage on the Limited Edition 479. A work of masterful craftsmanship, the clip ends in an elaborate depiction of Apollo’s head encircled by the rays of the sun and set in a solid Au 750 signature gold plate. The cap top is crowned with the Montblanc emblem in lustrous mother-of-pearl, embedded in solid Au 750 signature gold. Since secrecy was a central element of power at court, the Sun King used special encryption systems of letters and numbers known as the ‘Grand Chiffre’ and ‘Petit Chiffre’. They preserved the confidentiality of his military and diplomatic communications and simultaneously conjured up an aura of exclusivity and mystery. According to this system, the number 195 corresponded to the word ‘honour’, a fundamental principle at court due to its association with prestige, social status and the king’s favour. The great significance of this term inspired the limitation of this edition to precisely 195 pieces.