Met Exhibition to Showcase Monumental Carpets Created for King Louis XIV of France

Opening September 8, 2026, an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will explore the remarkable story of the 20-year production of the finest carpets ever made in Europe. A King’s Carpet: Louis XIV and the Savonnerie will present elements of the tapis du roi, an enormous carpet composed of 92 individual pieces that were intended to cover the complete span of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre in Paris, six times the length of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The 92 carpets were commissioned by King Louis XIV and his all-powerful minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the intended purpose of welcoming the highest dignitaries to the Sun King’s glittering court with an impressive display of luxury and splendor, though this vision was never fully realized. Shedding new light on three significant Savonnerie carpets in The Met’s collection that were made as part of Louis XIV’s ambitious Grande Galerie project, A King’s Carpet will also bring a small but important group of loans into the Wrightsman Period Rooms. The exhibition will be on view through March 5, 2028.

The exhibition is made possible in part by Hubert and Mireille Goldschmidt.

“A King’s Carpet highlights an extraordinary royal commission of unprecedented scale,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO. “Telling complex and intertwined stories of a king’s superlative ambition and of the weavers who translated an opulent vision into reality, this exhibition brings to the fore the creative genius, technological innovation, and vast labor force demanded by Louis XIV’s zeal to produce the largest carpet the world had ever seen.”

“The story of Louis XIV’s Savonnerie carpets for the Louvre’s Grande Galerie is a unique chapter in the history of art,” said Wolf Burchard, Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. “The sophistication and unimaginable scale of this royal commission make these carpets a tangible reflection of the Sun King’s grandiose ambitions. Over more than 20 years, Louis XIV’s government lavished huge sums on the weaving of these exceptional Baroque masterpieces, which were relegated to storage for much of the 18th century, before being dispersed after the French Revolution. Three carpets found their way into The Met collection, and we are delighted to be able to share their tumultuous stories with our public in the first ever exhibition about the Savonnerie in the United States.”

Elizabeth Cleland, Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, said, “In 17th-century Europe up to this point, fine carpets had been almost exclusively silk low-pile imported from western Asia and north Africa, mostly intimate-scale precious ornamentation for furniture or placed underfoot in only the richest of domestic spaces. In contrast, Louis XIV’s Grande Galerie scheme sought to astound courtiers, ambassadors, and visiting dignitaries by inviting them to walk upon lusciously thick, deep-pile carpets as far as the eye could see. Visitors to The Met’s exhibition will encounter a nuanced and rich narrative, interweaving accounts of the carpet’s makers, raw materials, and technical innovations with the wider story of French global ambitions and messaging overseas.”

A King’s Carpet will illuminate not only the grandeur of the Grande Galerie carpets but also the harsh realities of their production. Part of Louis XIV’s audacious scheme was to establish Paris as a viable carpet weaving center, necessitating the creation of massive workshops within the city. To meet the unprecedented scale and work pace, oversize looms were developed using timber grown for warships. An expendable workforce of trainee weavers capitalized on the sharp eyesight and nimble fingers of orphans, young children, and adolescents, who—homeless and unaccompanied—had been mustered from the streets of Paris.

Despite the monumental expense and energy invested in this unique commission, Louis XIV appears never to have used the carpets as originally planned. With time, the notion of “one” carpet was forgotten and individual pieces given away as diplomatic gifts, or used in other royal and later presidential residences, sometimes cut or sewn together to be adapted to a room like wall-to-wall carpeting. After the French Revolution, many carpets were stripped of their royal emblems, others sold, finding their way into the distinguished homes of British and American collectors, most notably the Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan, the Vanderbilts, and the Fricks. The last time that several of the 92 carpets were rolled out together was in June 1919 for the signature of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors.

This exhibition will present four complete carpets from Louis XIV’s Louvre project along with a selection of carpet fragments and one trial weave probably made by one of the many orphans employed at the Savonnerie. In addition, for the first time at The Met, visitors will be able to observe textile conservators at work in a temporary in-gallery conservation studio as they repair and strengthen one of these precious, monumental textiles. Special programming will share their work and discoveries.

A King’s Carpet is curated by Wolf Burchard, Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and Elizabeth Cleland, Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. The exhibition highlights a long-standing cooperative effort between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Mobilier national in Paris, which is mounting a major exhibition on the Grande Galerie carpets for one week at the Grand Palais, Le Trésor retrouvé du Roi-Soleil / The rediscovered Treasure of the Sun King (February 1–8, 2026). The Grand Palais exhibition is curated by Wolf Burchard of The Met and Emmanuelle Federspiel and Antonin Macé de Lépinay of the Mobilier national, the three of who are currently preparing a comprehensive new monograph on Louis XIV’s Savonnerie carpets, which is to be released in 2027.

The exhibition will be featured on The Met websiteand social media.

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