Design for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune

Design for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune

Anonymous, French, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for the gardens of the castle of Savigny in France. The design of the grounds is presented as a floorplan, with an indication of the castle and all other buildings in outline and pink wash. The redesign, possibly done for Anne Barbe Charlotte de Migieu de Savigny (1752-1797) after her marriage to Charles Richard de Montaugé (1734–1808) in 1782, involved a conversion of the grounds into a romantic landscape garden with meandering walkways as had become fashionable, particularly in England in the course of the 18th century as a strong reaction against the highly organized geometrical designs of 17th-century France.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-BeauneDesign for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-BeauneDesign for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-BeauneDesign for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-BeauneDesign for the Gardens of the Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.