It all began in 1802 during Napoleon's visit to Lyon. There he discovered first-hand the serious crisis that the woven silk industry was going through at the time.
1802, 1806, 1807 and 1808: he placed a few support orders. But it was especially in 1810 that he launched a gigantic order for the Versailles estate where he had settled. No less than 80 km of fabric had to be manufactured between 1811 and 1813 to meet the Emperor's personal wishes!
An order that will seal the fate of Lyon silks.
Napoleon's approach actually had a dual objective: to revive local production shaken by difficulties, but there was also, above all, the imperial ambition of putting France in first position in the field of European decorative arts.
The resumption of silk production gave rise to other parallel activities: dyeing, drawing, manufacturing of looms, among others.
Based on a very precise chronology and with a multitude of historical and technical details, the exhibition wonderfully relates the history of Lyon silks, in particular the genesis and the realization of this historic order of 1810.
Letters, sketches, illustrations, a few paintings, threads, bobbins, looms, but above all this famous delivery of 1813, these dozens of fabrics, colorful, sometimes spectacular, straight out of the national furniture which 200 years later have lost none of their brilliance and splendor.
