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

Art Historical Context

This enchanting 1651 engraving, titled *Design for a Fountain and Square Parterres for Pleasure Garden*, captures the elegance of 17th-century garden design. Created by a collaborative team including renowned landscape architect André Mollet—alongside family members Noël and Jacques Mollet, Queen of Sweden (a key patron), and engravers like Jan van dede IV—it hails from an album of ornamental prints now housed in the Metropolitan Museum Art's Drawings and Prints. The intricate plate depicts symmetrical parterres (formal flower beds) surrounding a central fountain, evoking the structured beauty of Baroque pleasure gardens meant for royal leisure and display. André Mollet's work, exemplified here, reflects the Dutch-French garden tradition that influenced later masters like André Le Nôtre at Versailles. Commissioned amid Queen Kristina's court in Sweden, these designs promoted geometric harmony, water features, and clipped hedges as symbols of order and opulence. Engraving as a medium was revolutionary, allowing precise reproduction and widespread sharing of architectural ideas across Europe via printed books. Measuring nearly 19 by 15 inches on its sheet, this piece invites visitors to imagine strolling through scented, sunlit parterres—a testament to how 17th-century print culture democratized high design, blending art, nature, and princely ambition.

About the Artist

Noel Mollet|Kristina, Queen of Sweden|André Mollet|Jacques Mollet|Henry Kayser|Jan van de Velde IV|Wolfgang Hartmann (French|Swedish|French|French|Swedish|Dutch|Swedish?) · |1626 |0017 | | |1610 | – |1689 |0017 | | |1686 |

French|Swedish, 1626–1689|French, active 17th century|French| |Dutch, Utrecht before 1610–1686 Haarlem|