Versailles: Science and Splendour – a 'blockbuster' exploration of 18th-century innovation

Courtly life in 18th century Versailles is widely remembered as "a world of pure fantasy frolics", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian.

Yet for all the excess and absolutism associated with the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI, the three monarchs took an impressively "progressive lead" when it came to scientific research. Their patronage gave rise to many remarkable developments in engineering, natural science and medicine. This "glittering" exhibition at the Science Museum looks past the clichés surrounding Versailles, and illustrates how the palace was in fact a hive of experimentation and ingenuity: indeed, even the building and its grounds were "a technological achievement", its gardens full of "state of the art innovations". Featuring a wide array of exquisite objects, from drawings to machines and scientific equipment to taxidermy, this is a "blockbuster" of a show that should not be missed.

The rule of the last Bourbon kings coincided with "the elevation and systematisation" of science as a discipline, said Melanie McDonagh in The London Standard. Scientists sought – and often received – royal patronage, in the hope of presenting their discoveries at court. One such demonstration, commemorated in an illustration here, came courtesy of Étienne Montgolfier and his hot air balloon, which he tested before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, filling its basket with "a rooster, a sheep and a duck" (thankfully, they survived the ordeal). "Wonderful pieces" abound: a "superlative" watch with a crystal face made for Marie Antoinette; "beautiful" zoological paintings; and a series of "stuffed anatomical dolls designed to demonstrate practical obstetrics". All speak of a moment when science "was allied with the decorative arts", rather than practised with dry functionality. It is enough to make the visitor rather "wistful".

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There are certain points at which you could be forgiven for thinking that "France's kings were interested in science only when it could satisfy their megalomaniacal desires", said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. A "freakishly enormous" hydraulic system was designed to bring water uphill from the Seine to Versailles's fountains. It never worked. You can see Jean-Baptiste Oudry's paintings of pineapples grown there – the ultimate status symbol. And you can see Louis XV's stuffed rhinoceros too; in life, the pampered animal was fed on bread and given "moisturising oil massages". Altogether scarier is "a wickedly elongated curved scalpel" created to "rid Louis XIV of an anal fistula". The surgery was rehearsed on 75 impoverished test subjects, some of whom died; the surgeon was "so traumatised that he never operated again". Altogether, the show is "a blast" – a superb exhibition that is also "a masterclass in brilliant, concise storytelling".