Passages to Fantasy : The Performance of
Motion in Cellini’s Fontainebleau Portal
and the Galerie François I
In the early 1540s, King Francis I commissioned Benvenuto Cellini to design a bronze portal for the Porte Dorée at Fontainebleau. It consisted of a tympanum depicting the ‘Nymph of Fontainebleau’ in a forest setting. The imagery revived the foundation myth of Fontainebleau as a bountiful hunting ground and water source. Although it was never completed, Cellini’s design presented the forest beyond the doors as a recreational space for the varied motions of the hunting ritual and the palace behind the doors as a space for the more choreographed ambulatory motion of guided diplomatic tours. This essay explores the complementarity in the staging of interior and exterior as zones of visual and somatic pleasure.
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2019 ◽
pp. 307-313
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