The forecourt in the circle. Note especially the big group of trees in the southwest section of the forecourt (the lower left part of the circle).

The plan was presented by a special purpose foundation (Stichting Plein Elswout) that is supposed to maintain the forecourt and organize events there and on other location in the large park:

The presentation drawing. All trees at the southwest corner are left out.
Or planned to be cut?

The central part with the oval lawn seems to fit historical developments: this section appears to have been unchanged over the past 200 years. The empty areas between the walls and the water do not seem to be in line with historical developments, nor are they consistent with the current situation. The large trees that are currently there -visible in the lower left part of the circle on the aerial view- are not shown on the presentation of the plan.
One can only hope the trees are left out of the presentation drawing for reasons of clarity, not because there is no place for them in the new layout. A drawing of the house and forecourt dated circa 1810¹ already shows thick planting outside the walls:

Elswout circa 1810. The area outside the walls is planted like a forest.

The total cost of the operation is estimated at € 1.2 million. The organization received funding commitments from the estate’s owners and stakeholders, but is still looking for financial support. They expect to be able to realize their plan within the next two years.

1. Source information: TU Delft [back]

Parc Monceau (8e arr), originally uploaded by George Eastman House.

This photo is not in the exhibition, it is in the collection of the George Eastman House. When I saw this in their photostream on flickr, I immediately knew I had seen this tree earlier this year. I took my photo from the opposite side, where on Atget’s photo the path runs into a group of trees and shrubs. Needless to say the tree is enormous now, after 110 years of additional growth.
Enjoy the combination of then and now, with the link above, and the following photos taken in September 2011:

• Platanus at Monceau - side view

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• Platanus at Monceau - look at the size of the people

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According to a local newspaper article, the trees are around a century old and cut down because the current view is that in a wooded area like this, only ‘ecologically correct’ trees are wanted. If that is true, stupidity has reached new levels.
And it is partly true, as the local IVN group states in its newsletter of December 2011 that ecological reasons are the main driver of this action. Besides that, they claim safety reasons, as a lot of the older trees apparently are in a bad state – which is to be expected when architectural garden and park elements are treated as ‘nature’ over a period of 4 decades. Architecture needs maintenance, not neglect or a watch-what-happens-when-we-do-nothing approach. This whole action simply seems to be the result of ignorance, nurtured over a prolonged period of time.

Architecture?
The description of the gardens in the register of monuments state that many trees in this monumental garden (nr 470141) date from this period.¹ Part of the axis belonging to the 18th century garden was elongated towards the top of the Wijngaardsberg around 1900, and was then loosely planted with Quercus rubra. The register specifically states that there was no actual avenue planted in this section.

So not only is ‘ethnic cleansing’-to use a rather big word for once- possibly performed under the cover of ‘ecological maintenance’ (definately as a result of such maintenance), it is also quite possible that a deliberate landscape design from a century ago -prolonging an axis that itself was over a century old at the time, using plants that were ‘en vogue’ in the early 20th century- is demolished. A landscape design that may be attributed to Dirk Tersteeg (1907) or, after simplifying the design, to Leonard Springer (1915).²

The worst thing seems to be that the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, the governing body that keeps an eye on these things, has been informed and apparently approved of the plans. I would like to see their motivation published somewhere, just to see what their considerations were.
At least all necessary parties have been asked for an opinion, it should be said…

And just as a pointer for future actions (and because it is a source I did not know of yet): here’s a nice view at monumental trees in the garden of Vliek.

1. The link leads to a somewhat more extensive description on ‘Rijksmonumenten.nl’, which is not related to the official governing body concerning monuments in The Neherlands: RCE. [back]
2. But the Springer design seems to be limited to the garden around the house. [back]

The current felling follows extensive restoration works carried out in Elswout over the past year, which mainly concerned its pavilions and bridges.

The work has started today, as the situation appears to be too critical to wait till after the holidays. First up will be trees along a public cycling path, on the grounds of Duinvliet. Staatsbosbeheer expects the investigation of potentially dangerous trees and -when necessary- felling of more trees will last through the first half of 2012.

Counting rings?
I just hope someone makes the effort to count growth rings on the older trees, as parts of nowadays Duinvliet are remnants of one of the oldest landscape gardens in The Netherlands: Sandenhoeff in Overveen. In my article on the subject I make a case for that claim, by pointing out that although we know very little of the actual layout of the garden at the time, the fact that plants from the New World are purchased for it as early as 1756, can only mean an attempt was made to create an English garden in the dunes west of Haarlem.¹

In letters to his friend Jacob Boreel, Sandenhoeff’s owner Cornelis Backer exclaimed that he very much enjoyed the layout of those gardens, although he had admittedly never seen one for real. While Boreel was in Engeland during two tours on behalf of the Dutch government (1759/1760 and 1761-1762), he was constantly pressed by Backer to send home drawings and prints of gardens in England, as well as plants he had heard about. In the mean time Backer sent fruit from Boreel’s garden (Beeckestijn) and grapevines to England, in order that Boreel could entertain his guests during meals and have some gifts ready for people who he might want give one.

Let’s just hope that the current cutting of trees can confirm the early landscape layout I have discerned from Backers letters and cash register…

1. H. van der Eijk, “Sandenhoeff: een vroeg landschappelijke tuin?”, Cascade 18 (2009), nr. 2, p104-110. He called them ‘Americaansche boomen’ and paid for the complete package of getting trees from the other side of the ocean: retrieval, freight, transport and -not the least- provision.
   At the time, Dutch gardens were still laid out in a traditional manner, full blown landscape gardens did not appear till the 1780s. One of the first was Elswout itself, by the way, initiated by a member of the Boreel family. [back]

This consistency might have its roots in the history of the garden itself: in 1870, a fire destroyed the castle, leaving only the garden to focus on in terms of monumentality and maintenance. But that explanation is too easy, there is more.¹

• Rejuvenated avenues and the pond area.

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• Saint-Cloud in 1811.

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• Site of the old castle.

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• Saint-Cloud pond area.

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• Looking towards the location of the former orangery and castle.

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• Plaquette.

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• Dated statue in the pond area.

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• 19th century addition to the garden.

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• Saint-Cloud - click to see the texts and lines.

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All photos by HvdE 2011.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

One of the central parts of the garden still leans heavily on the original Le Notre design. Slightly west of where the castle used to be it has retained the terraced layout, the ponds with their many fountains and the avenues radiating from (or towards) one central point of focus. The statues dotted along the side of the paths that enclose the ponds, are consistent with an original 17th century layout. But the statues all seem to be 19th century productions. More than one have the date 1866 chisseled in their bases. Nearby an elegant but weird pond-cascade-statue combo displayes clear late 19th century features (this may be dating from a bit later, 1890s or something). What happened in this section the garden?

It seems these 19th century features are not directly connected with the 1870 fire, as the statues are from around 1866 and I do not want to presume the fire was premeditated.² A plaquette in the garden points out that there used to be an orangery placed near the west facade of the castle. The orangery formed part of the original 17th century garden, but it was demolished in 1863. That destruction might have been part of a larger plan to restore or renovate the garden near the west facade, including fixing the pond area. But there is no sign in the garden that could tell me anything about this part of its history. I could be wrong, you know…

At the moment, only the plaquette and the dates on the statues’ bases testify to what might have happened during that period. Restoration work still continues in other parts of the garden, and one avenue that borders directly to this part of the garden wil be restored or renovated in the next years. It would be great when the domain’s owner, Le Centre des monuments nationaux, could set up one of their famous signs to further detail this otherwise forgotten part of Saint-Cloud’s history.

After all, it is often hard enough to reconstruct the development of a garden when no restoration or renovation has taken place. It is so much more difficult when these have occured, but are not identified as such. Though I do like the puzzles they offer, too…

1. Great pictures of the castle when intact, a depiction of the fire, and photos of the castle after the fire can be found following the links. [back]
2. A canon ball used in the war between France and the Prussians set fire to the castle on October 13, 1870 -the Prussians had sieged the castle just three weeks earlier. [back]

There is a peculiar stand-alone altar in the gardens of Wörlitz, the famous early landscape garden laid out by the Von Anhalt-Dessau family from 1767 onwards. Standing near the kitchen building, close to the palace, it caught my eye when I visited the garden in 2009. The sides of the circular altar are dotted with reliefs of isolated figures, denoting the moon goddess Selene, Oceanos, some other figures and a few downward facing torches. It just seems a perfectly strange iconographic mix.

An altar as a weird conundrum, and as I thought at the time, quite unique.
An altar similar to this takes a prominent place in a portrait of Louise Henriette Wilhelmine von Anhalt-Dessau, painted in 1799 (picture obviously taken from a book cover). But the proportions do not match – the real one is thicker and lower- and the figures on the painted altar are closer to each other. Also, the Selene that is visible on the painting is in a slightly different angle in comparison with the real altar I saw at Wörlitz.

We could file those differences as the result of the artist’s freedom. But there are at least two of these altars, I found out during a visit to the Louvre earlier this year. In a statue gallery in the Roman sculpture section I saw the altar pictured below (with apologies for the image quality, there was not much light and I only had a phone at my disposal).¹

The Louvre altar shows more figures and in general has more in common with the painted Selene altar on Louise’s portrait. According to the museum’s information, the altar used to stand in the Diana Temple in the Villa Borghese gardens and there is a Ch. Percier drawing from 1790 mounted to the wall to prove that. The moon goddess Luna (Selene in Greek) and Diana were ultimately seen as similar figures, so the appearance of a 2nd century altar depicting Selene in a temple dedicated to Diana in a Renaissance garden is not particularly strange.²
The altar at Wörlitz does not look like a roman example. More likely it is a neoclassical remake or pastiche of known examples such as the Borghese altar. It is hihgly likely that the owners of Wörlitz either visited the Borghese garden, or knew drawings or prints of the Temple of Diana.
It is obvious from the painting that the iconography was important for the family. But it would be nice to know for certain how this altar with this particular iconography came to adorn the majestic gardens of Wörlitz.

1. Musee du Louvre (Inventaire MR 952, Nro usuel Ma 508); purchased by the museum in 1807. The museum is also in doubt with respect to the identity of the two young men. [back]
2. The altar was purchased 17 years after the Percier drawing. At this moment a new Empire-style altar occupies the temple in Villa Borghese. [back]

• Koepel van Stoop

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• View from the Koepel van Stoop

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• View from the north

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• Seen from the west

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• Almost removed beeches in May 2010

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• Beech trees removed (November 2011)

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• This horse chestnut is also cut down

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Photos HvdE 2010 and 2011.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

I don’t know why I thought the trees were just heavily pruned, I probably did not want to think of the more rigorous option, which also resulted in cutting down a horse chestnut just north of the building. A little bit of reading could have pointed me in the right direction.
The building is in use as a studio for the artist Mijpe since 2005. Her website shows the reason for the removal of these trees: a storm in May 2009 damaged a number of beech trees near the building. To avoid damage to the cupola -which was restored in 2003- by the remainder of the trees, these have been removed from March 2010 onwards.

My only question is: is there any plan to replant the group of trees on this location? A photo in the archive of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) shows what a background they offer, a magnificent view that is now lost. I’m guessing the trees dated back to the 1840s, and as such are part of either that design by Zocher, or of the initial plans for the establishment of an estate on this location by Stoop. Both arguments speak for a completion of the 2003 cupola restoration in its original context (i.e. cupola complete with group of trees).
Or do we accept the gradual loss of quality and context between this building and its surroundings?

1. This building was built in 1840 for the Amsterdam banker J.B. Stoop, who intended to create an estate on this location. It was designed by architect J.D. Zocher jr. Problems with watermanagement on this location caused Stoop to choose an alternative location. In nearby Zeist he built Molenbosch, also a design by J.D. Zocher jr. [back]

That current state differs considerably. Some gardens only show remnants of what once was, the northern garden of Bagh-e Abas Abad for example, or the very minimalist remnants of Cyrus the Great’s garden at Pasargad. Others, such as Bagh-e Fin in Kashan in the Isfahan province, are in pristine shape.

Thusfar the Unesco website only gives two pictures of one garden. We can do better than that. Not all gardens are represented in HGimages (the Historical Gardens photo group on flickr) yet, and the ones that are there do not show many photos. But that is work in progress and I thought it would be nice to get a visual idea of what these gardes look like now. In the list below, the links refer to these photos. No link, no photos.

The nine listed gardens are:

• Bagh-e Abas Abad | HGmap
• Bagh-e Fin | HGmap
• Bagh-e Chehel Sotun | HGmap
• Bagh-e Akhbariyeh
• Bagh-e Shahzadeh
• Bagh-e Eram | HGmap
• Ancient garden of Pasargadae | HGmap
• Bagh-e Dolat Abad | HGmap
• Bagh-e Pahlavanpur

Finally I would like to point at an amazing feature of traditional Iranian architecture, which I encountered while looking for pictures of these gardens: the ‘windcatchers’, as at Dolat Abad. It shows how inventive people can get when living in harsh conditions that -on the surface- seem to make living there impossible. It is the same inventiveness that made gardening possible here for over two and a half century. And counting.

Here’s just a quick reminder of the variety the garden designer has at his or her disposal. In an interesting -although lenghty- article in the latest issue of Garden History, Ben Lennon as an aside mentions a 19th centrury addition to the mainly 18th century garden of Tottenham Park, near Marlborough.¹
As a new access road to the adjoining Savernake Forest with 18th century avenues and features, an avenue of horse chestnut and common lime, planted in alternate fashion, was realised in the 19th century. Large portions of this avenue still exist.²

Maybe there are examples of this combination elsewhere?

1. Ben Lennon, ‘Burlington, Brown and Bill: the landscaping of Tottenham park and Savernake Forest in the eighteenth century’, in: Garden History 39:1 (Summer 2011), page 26. [back]
2. The park is not open to the public, reason why images are scarce. [back]

So we have three instances where similar lion statues appear in gardens across Northern Europe, in a very limited period: between 1850 and 1867. And their inspiration, which is much older, originated far more south and travelled across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Rome.
This all suggests a sculptor’s studio produced copies of the original in small numbers, during a short period in the third quarter of the 19th century.

And then photo’s of Scott fountain at Belle Isle Park started to appear in the photo group on Flickr. This fountain was started in 1919, finished in 1925 and created by architect Cass Gilbert and sculptor Herbert Adams. Around the base four lions play a role in the elaborate waterworks of the fountain.

The similarities with the 19th century statues are obvious. Compared to the ones at De Paauw (above) the Detroit statues (right) show the details in more relief, but the lions in Wassenaar seem to have the smoothest finish of them all. Seen from the side the Belle Isle Park lions look very much like the originals in Rome (see the HGimages link below this post for more photos).

But the gap between the occurance of these statues is over half a century.

Why Herbert Adams (1858-1945) used these lions, and where he got his inspiration from, is material for further research. He went to Europe in the 1880s, where he worked for French sculptor Antonin Mercié, who consequently created two statues in the US in 1890 and 1891.
Adams’ work consists mainly of busts and statues of people, he may even have only sculpted the Scott-statue situated near the fountain. In that case Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) could have chosen to install exactly these four lion statues on the fountain.

Amidst all the uncertainties, it is clear that the Palatine lions remained an inspiration for sculptors far into the 20th century, even outside Europe. Whether they were mass produced as copies since the 1850s, or whether they kept inspiring individual artists over and over again, remains to be seen.