France may be a country in mourning this week, but nothing will dull the shine of the glorious rococo gilding of Versailles when a small portion of it arrives in Australia this summer.
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From Marie-Antoinette's harp to gilded furniture from the private rooms of Louis XIV and a 1.5 tonne marble fountain centrepiece, the famous palace's opulence will be on display for the National Gallery of Australia's summer blockbuster.
The exhibition, which opens in December, will feature more than 130 objects from the opulent palace rooms, including paintings, sculptures, tapestries, gilded furniture and personal items from the kings, their wives and mistresses.
In welcoming the show's announcement in Canberra on Monday, French Ambassador to Australia Christophe Lecourtier said there was a sad timeliness to the event, with his country still reeling from the tragedies in Nice.
"Sometimes it's more positive to look at the past than the present," he said.
President of the Versailles museum Catherine Pegard said the museum, which welcomes more than 7 million visitors a year, was opening itself up to the world.
"I think it's very important to show that Versailles goes out to the world, it's not only a museum frozen in the past, but that it's a castle that lives today," she said.
"It lives in several ways – by welcoming visitors through its rooms – and I think that today, Versailles must open its doors."
She said the vast museum had progressively been opening up new rooms to the public, while also displaying its artworks elsewhere.
"There's no contradiction between the past and the present, there's no contradiction between creation and heritage," she said.
"For me, the links are easy to make, and I think it's particularly interesting that an exhibition from Versailles can come to Canberra, a contemporary city with a modern museum, to show collections in a contemporary setting in the same way we show contemporary artists in Versailles."
Several of the pieces in the show, including the massive statue of Latona and her children from one of the palace's main fountains, have never before left France.
The museum's chief curator, Beatrix Saule, said the statue's journey was made possible by the extensive restoration processes now underway at Versailles.
"We're just in the process of replacing the originals in the park with replicas, because of the climate," she said.
But the original will be summering in Australia, along with Marie-Antoinette's handcrafted harp and chair, a gold reliquary owned by Louis XIV's mother, and a six-metre tapestry that will require individual freight.
Gallery director Gerard Vaughan said the exhibition would showcase one of the most fascinating and tumultuous periods of French history, and bring to life "the luxury, power, sex and passion" of the court of Versailles.
"Versailles was packed with people and they were all political animals, they were all vying," he said.
"It's an amazing story and it's all about a hothouse atmosphere and one big unending house party for over 100 years."
He said Australians had consistently shown an insatiable appetite for all things French.
"An exhibition like this will not bring in more people than post-Impressionism from the Musee D'Orsay – it's a different kind of exhibition – but it's going to be very successful," he said.
"The general public know exactly what Versailles stands for, and that is a huge head start in terms of marketing."
Versailles: Treasures from the Palace opens at the National Gallery of Australia on December 9 and runs until April 17.
