(Rueil)SILVESTRE, Israel.   (VIEWS OF THE GARDENS AT RUEIL)   Dédié A tres Haute Puissante, tres Illustre et tres Pieuse Dame Madame la Duchesse d'Aiguillon Pair de France, Par son tres humble serviteur Israel Silvestre.       Paris: van Merlen, n.d. (ca   1661).          A rare and important series of engravings illustrating the famous gardens of Cardinal Richelieu at Rueil, among the most prominent examples of French garden design prior to Le Nôtre. Significant gardens were first built at the location for Jean Moisset in the first decade of the 17th century. Marie de Medici later occupied Rueil until her exile in 1631, when Richelieu took it for himself and made extensive additions. His architect, Jacques Lemercier, is credited with the design of the garden, while Thomas Francini built a number of fountains and grottoes there. Louis XIV sent LeNôtre there to make notes on the gardens in 1766. Among the garden's most famous features were the Grande Cascade (the first of its type in France, designed by Lemercier), two grottoes, the Grand Escalier and several trick fountains and waterworks. John Evelyn visited the gardens in 1744 and wrote of them in his Diary : "Though the house is not of the greatest, the gardens about it are so magnificent, that I doubt whether Italy has any exceeding it for all the rarities of pleasure." Italian mannerist influences were the most important in distinguishing Rueil's character (Francini was born in Italy and Lemercier studied there). Appropriately, Israel Silvestre, the first artist to record the gardens of Rueil, had also studied in Italy and later worked in the Parisian studio of Stephano Della Bella. No views of the gardens were published during Richelieu's lifetime, but his niece and heiress, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, commissioned Silvestre to prepare this series of 12 engravings to record the gardens after she had completed extensive restorations (including some alterations). Silvestre's etchings in general "are the most important record of 17th-c. French gardens." (OXFORD COMPANION TO GARDENS, page 518), and those in his series on Rueil, engraved by Adam Perelle, are among the rarest and most important of these. We can locate only one set (Dumbarton Oaks) in any North American library.   Oblong sheets (20.3 x 29.5); engraved dedication leaf + 12 engraved plates.   Faucheux 287: 1-13; Berlin Catalogue 3444 (lacking three plates); not in Ganay.          Dedication leaf soiled and wrinkled with several old paper repairs; numerous pin-pricks and a few small puncture holes in left margin of each plate; intermittent mild foxing in margins; all plate impressions generally clean; preserved in paper folder. $4,000.00

CLICK To Return To Catalogue     /    HOME