Design for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, Belgium

Design for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, Belgium

Charles de Wailly

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of three drawings from the collection of Mrs. Wrightsman, made by the artist Charles de Wailly for the gardens of Enghien. They were part of a larger plan developed by the Duke of Arenberg to redesign the palace and gardens. In 1780 he attracted De Wailly to this end, who finished his overall redesign in 1782, which was never realized. His plans for the garden included this Temple of Apollo, as well as a group of follies in the shaped of ruins of classical architecture, which he named “New Herculaneum”. The temple was meant to be the crowning feature of the area of the garden described as Mount Parnassus. De Wailly devised an ingenious raised temple, characterized by a double spiral staircase at its center. The drawing in pen and ink with watercolor shows the Temple situated in its park-like surroundings and shows various people admiring the structure and walking along the garden pathways.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, BelgiumDesign for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, BelgiumDesign for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, BelgiumDesign for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, BelgiumDesign for the Temple of Apollo in the Gardens of the Chateau d'Enghien, Belgium

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.