Design for a fountain surrounded by four triangular parterres in a pleasure garden
Not on view
Engraving, with a garden design, part of an album with with 30 plates (mostly folded) of garden designs created by André Mollet and dedicated to Queen Kristina of Sweden. The album intends to provide inspiration for garden designers in France and Sweden in the creation of flower beds, groves, and other garden decorations.This plate contains a design for four triangular parterres around a fountain, separated by walking paths. The designs inside the parterres consist of two C-scrolls, flanked by scrolling leaves, and separated by a vertical palmette, flanked above by stylized scrolling leaves, which point towards the fountain. They would have likely been created with boxwood embroideries, or by cutting grass into patterns and accentuated with hedges, flowers, and different kinds of ground cover, to achieve the 'compartiments de gazon', a type of grass designs popular in 17th-century France. The parterres are bordered by thin strips with semi-abstract rosettes, likely indicating the use of flowers to frame the parterres.
