La Perspective
Salomon de Caus (1576–1626) was a unique figure in garden history. Trained as an architect-mathematician and hydraulic engineer, he was renowned not only for his garden designs with magnificent waterworks, but also for his many publications on topics relating to the arts and sciences. His most influential works include the Hortus Palatinus (1620) on his Heidelberg garden designs, and Les raisons des forces mouvantes (1615), setting out the principles of hydraulics on which the automata or trick fountains and water jokes in the seventeenth-century garden were based. Familiar with the waterworks in Italian Renaissance gardens (Villa d'Este, Tivoli, and Pratolino, Florence), ultimately derived from the just reissued works of Hero of Alexandria (first century A.D.), de Caus introduced hydraulics into the Northern European garden. His influence was widespread at the courts of the Southern and Northern Netherlands, Germany, and also England, where his younger brother Isaac de Caus worked.
Artwork Details
- Title: La Perspective
- Designer: Salomon de Caus (French, Dieppe 1576?–1626 (active Germany))
- Publisher: Widow of Esaias von Hulsen (Netherlandish, Middelburg ca. 1570–before 1626 Stuttgart)
- Published in: Frankfurt am Main
- Date: 1612
- Medium: Engravings and woodcuts
- Dimensions: Overall: 15 3/8 x 10 7/16 x 1 15/16 in. (39 x 26.5 x 5 cm)
- Classifications: Books, Ornament & Architecture
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
- Object Number: 49.122(1)
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Multiple artists/makers
1612–20
Salomon de Caus
Jan Norton
1615
Salomon de Caus
Jan Norton
1615
Salomon de Caus
Johann Theodor de Bry
1620
Salomon de Caus
Jan Norton
1615
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