Design for a fountain surrounded by four square parterres for a pleasure garden

1651

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 square parterres around a circular fountain, separated by walking paths. The designs inside the parterres consist of orientalist flowers with scrolling branches and stylized leaves, framed possibly by streams of water or rows of bushes or boxwood. The floral motifs in the design 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.

Artwork Details

Title: Design for a fountain surrounded by four square parterres for a pleasure garden
Designer: André Mollet (French, active 17th century)
Designer: Jacques Mollet (French)
Designer: Noel Mollet (French)
Engraver: Jan van de Velde IV (Dutch, Utrecht before 1610–1686 Haarlem)
Engraver: Wolfgang Hartmann
Publisher: Henry Kayser , Stockholm
Dedicatee: Kristina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish, 1626–1689)
Date: 1651
Medium: Engraving
Dimensions: Sheet: 23 5/16 × 15 1/2 in. (59.2 × 39.3 cm)
Plate: 21 5/16 × 15 1/2 in. (54.1 × 39.3 cm)
Album: 15 3/4 × 10 1/16 × 1 1/8 in. (40 × 25.5 × 2.9 cm)
Classifications: Books, Prints, Ornament & Architecture
Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926
Object Number: 26.104.5(5)
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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