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 an octagonal fountain, separated by walking paths. The designs in the parterres consist of crowned strapwork masks on the corners closer to the fountain, flanked to the sides by scrolling grotesque leaves and stylized exotic flowers, which fill the rest of the space. The rectangles likely meant to be bordered with streams of water, which would also make up some parts of the interior designs in the parterres. 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.
