Hermès has long enjoyed a special relationship with France’s
Musée National de la Voiture et du Tourisme, in Compiègne. Dating from the
early 18th century, the Berlin carriage depicted here is one of the museum’s
great masterpieces, inspiring Wlodek Kaminski to create a scarf revisited in
this magically cropped design. Forced into a hasty getaway from Madrid in 1808,
the Spanish King Ferdinand VII and his retinue chose this solidly-built vehicle
rather than a lightweight, ceremonial carriage. Surprised by its ‘utterly
Gothic’ appearance, the Prince de Talleyrand (the exiled King’s host at the
Château de Valançay) wrote: ‘this obsolescent form had about it something of
the obsolescence of monarchy itself.’ But the carriage’s epic journey didn’t
end there. Abandoned after Ferdinand's departure, it languished at Valançay
until the early 20th century, when it caught the eye of an antiques dealer, and
finally a garage-owner. It was examined by the Musée de la Voiture’s Board of
Friends (including Mr. Hermès himself) in 1936, but was judged too expensive,
and was finally acquired for the French national collections in 1951.
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