Château de la Petite Malmaison 2.07

The Château de la Petite Malmaison is a French château from the 19th century in the town of Rueil-Malmaison in the Hauts-de-Seine department. It was built between 1803 and 1805 for Joséphine de Beauharnais, owner of the neighboring Château de Malmaison. It was a reception pavilion adjacent to a large greenhouse, since destroyed.HistoryThe large greenhouse of Malmaison was begun in 1804 for the Empress Josephine by the landscape architect Jean-Marie Morel (1728 - 1810) and completed by the end of 1805 according to plans by Jean-Thomas Thibault (1757-1826) and his partner Barthélemy Vignon (1762-1846). It was the first time in France that glass was used for such a large surface. The greenhouse of Malmaison can be considered the forerunner of the great glass and metal architecture of the 19th century. It was about 50by and was divided into two distinct sections: The greenhouse itself, heated by twelve large stoves, in which trees high could grow. Josephine cultivated plants like jasmine, rose, hydrangea and Parma violet.Behind and adjacent to it, a building housed a series of salons. A central salon with a rotunda was decorated by Louis-Martin Berthault in 1807, from where it was possible to view rare plants while resting after visiting the greenhouse. The roof was luxuriously decorated and furnished by the best craftsmen of the time such as the marble mason Gilet and the cabinetmaker Jacob Desmalter.The park was designed in the English style, also by Louis-Martin Berthault, named as landscape designer to the Empress Josephine.