The Yew Tree Ball (french: Le bal des ifs) was a masked ball held in the

Hall of Mirrors The Hall of Mirrors (french: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hal ...

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

on the night of 25–26 February 1745. 1,500 people attended. King

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

and several of his gentlemen courtiers appeared dressed as

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

yew trees. The ball is notorious for being the venue in which the king made contact with Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. He had first seen her while hunting at Senart. On 14 September 1745, Poisson was officially presented to the Court as the Marquise de Pompadour. She became the king’s official mistress until her death in 1764.

Gallery

File:Louis XV France by Louis-Michel van Loo 002.jpg, Louis XV File:Jean-Marc Nattier, Madame de Pompadour en Diane (1746).jpg, Pompadour dressed as Diana, 1746 File:Invitation to the ball.jpg, Invitation to the ball File:Bal des Ifs-galerie des glaces.jpg, The Yew Tree Ball, 1745

Notes

References

* * * {{citation , url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/30.22-34_34 , title=The Yew Tree Ball , publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art , access-date=2013-01-18 Versailles 1745 in France Masquerade balls