Claude Desgotz

Claude Desgotz was the nephew and protegé of André Le Nôtre^[1], the designer of the French formal gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles that set the pattern for grand gardening in France up to the Revolution, in spite of increasing competition from the informal English landscape style. The tradition was kept vital through apprenticeship connections in the generation following Le Nôtre's death (1700). A principal representative in this tradition was Claude Desgotz, "a worthy heir and a great talent in gardening",^[2] remarked the master teacher of architecture Jacques-François Blondel.

As a youth Desgotz was sent to the French Academy in Rome in the 1670s, and matured under the hand of Le Nôtre. When William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland was ambassador to Paris in 1698, he convinced Desgotz to return with him to England, where Desgotz worked out plans for the Queen's House, Greenwich and parterres for Windsor Castle, in part bringing up to date earlier plans made by his uncle^[3] Nothing came of the English adventure, except that William III of England, who was also Stadthouder in the Netherlands, commissioned him to draw up plans for the gardens at Het Loo, which have recently been replanted to Desgotz' designs.

Back in France once more, he was appointed Designer of the parterres of the Royal Houses^[4] and Controller of the King's Works^[5], doubtless due to the family connection. He was employed by Phillipe II, duc d'Orléans, the Regent during Louis XV's minority, for whom his design at the Palais Royal introduced smooth hillocks with clipped designs of palmettes, which became a familiar feature of formal French pattern-gardens in the eighteenth century.

Desgotz took on as a pupil, c. 1720-25, the Swedish architect and garden designer Carl Hårleman, the close collaborator and correspondent of Carl Gustav Tessin ^[6]. Hårleman was the prime mover in perpetuating the French formal garden in eighteenth-century Sweden.

Other pupils of André Le Nôtre were Alexandre Le Blond, the younger Michelle Bouteux and Jean-Charles Garnier d'Isle (Strandberg 1974 p.49, note 24, p. 58).

Major projects

The following projects were identified by Runar Strandberg, 1974:

In France

• Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Replanning Jacques Boyceau's gardens after the death of the Grande Mademoiselle (1693)^[7]
• Clagny. Minor adjustments in Le Nôtre's executed design.
• Rambouillet (for M. Fleuriau d'Armenonville), c. 1705
• Château de Sablé (for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Torcy), 1711. Designed the house and gardens.
• Château de Champs, built 1703-07 to designs by J.-B. de Chamblain.
• Château de Meudon, officially from 1715
• Château de Chaville, officially from 1715
• Château d'Anet. Monumental staircase for the duc de Venôme, and new gardens replacing the sixteenth-century parterres of Androuet du Cerceau.
• Château de Perrigny, Burgundy.
• Château de Bagnolet (duchesse d'Orléans), 1727.
• Palais Royal, Paris (for the Regent, Philippe duc d'Orléans, and for his widow), c. 1723-1730.

Abroad

• Schleissheim, Bavaria (for Maximilian Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria)
• Queen's House, Greenwich, England. 1698. Not executed.
• Windsor Castle, England. 1698. Not executed.
• Het Loo, Netherlands.

References

Notes

1. ^ His son François was one of Le Nôtre's principal heirs.
2. ^ "digne héritier et une grande capacité dans le Jardinage", in Cours d'architecture iv, 3, quoted Strandberg 1974 p49.
3. ^ Strandberg 1974, p 63.
4. ^ Dessinateur des parterres des Maisons Royales.
5. ^ Controlleur des bâtiments du Roi.
6. ^ Their joint archives and drawings form the Hårleman-Tessin Collection, Riksarkivet, Stockholm.
7. ^ A signed project is in the Hårleman-Tessin collection, Stockholm

Bibliography

• Runar Strandberg, "The French formal garden after Le Nostre", in The French Formal Garden, Elizabeth B. MacDougall and F. Hamilton Hazlehurst, editors, 1974, (Dumbarton Oaks)

External links