Design for a fountain and four rectangular parterres for 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 design consists of a design for four rectangular parterres around a circular fountain, separated by walking paths. The designs in the parterres consist of four fantastical winged beasts, with eagle heads, duck feet, and scrolling dolphin bodies, their tails flanked by long, scrolling branches with stylized orientalist flowers and leaves. 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 would have likely been framed with bushes with flowers.
