A Material World | A Fairy Tale Defense of Women: The Iconography of Charles Perrault

In May 2024 I gave a talk as part of the Warburg Institute's Material World Series. In this presentation, I discuss the art form that was foundational to Perrault's studio practice. Starting with the symbolic portrait of Princess Elizabeth Charlotte D'Orleans in the dedication letter for his Tales of Mother Goose, I also examine the iconographic programmes for two other projects: the Labyrinthe de Versailles and Le Cabinet des Beaux Arts. Both works are set in an Edenic space that reflects Perrault’s vision of the role of women in a perfectly ordered world.