Design for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure garden

Design for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure garden

André Mollet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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 a circular fountain and four square parterres, separated by walking paths. The fountain, of circular shape, is on the upper part of the design. Below it are the four square parterres, with designs made up of cornucopias with rich bundles of scrolling leaves and stylized flowers, meant to be bordered by streams of water. The motifs in the design were meant to be created, as stated by Mollet in the text, using boxwood embroideries. In the center is an octagonal-shaped canopy or garden house, which Mollet suggests in the text must be included as often as possible among boxwood embroideries, providing a place for rest in the gardens.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure gardenDesign for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure gardenDesign for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure gardenDesign for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure gardenDesign for a fountain and four square parterres for a pleasure garden

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.