Is Trump's Oval Office Decor Inspired By King Louis XIV of Versailles?

President Donald Trump changed the look and feel of the White House right after taking office. Trump changed the curtains in the oval office, removing Obama's maroon curtains to gold ones. According to one of New York Times' report last month Trump said that he changed the curtains to gold because Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the same ones.

The Times report said that Trump is obsessed with the White House's decor and thus has made the transformations as per his wishes.

According to a recent report by ABC News Australia, Robert Wellington, a lecturer of art history at the Australian National University and a scholar of Versailles style said that he has found similarities between Trump's decor of the interiors of his office to that of Louis XIV, the French ruler who built the palace of Versailles. Wellington pointed out that Trump's style of interior decor had close ties with the aristocratic French style.

"If you make the right deal, if you do well in business, you can live like a king," he said.

Read: Trump Renovated The White House Soon After Taking Office

"Whereas in the past in the 19th century in America the rich industrialists bought antiques — they loved French Ancient Regime antiques — Donald Trump isn't buying antiques," Wellington said commenting on Trump's inclination towards glittery styles that is more of just outwardly glamor than have substance. "It is kitsch. ... our traditional definition of kitsch is 'high art bought low' and in a sense it's bought low, it's not very good taste, but it is handmade and very expensive," Wellington told ABC News.

Trump has not been the only one in the world who was inspired by the aristocratic style of the French and decorated according to the style of Versailles. Businessman David Siegel built an American copy of Versailles in Florida that was completed in 2015. Saddam Hussein the Iraqi dictator also had a knack for this type of decor. Muammar Gaddafi, the former prime minister of Libya also preferred embellished chairs.

Wellinger also specified that he thinks Trump's usage of gold patterns in his decor is similar to that of people who copy the French aristocratic style as a part of an age-old tradition. "People who are trying to create social position for themselves through the display of opulent things," he said. "They don't have family history [of wealth] but they try and create a sense of history for themselves by quoting the style of the French nobles, that is, the style of aristocracy," he added.