unknown artist, eighteenth centuryFormerly attributed to Leonard Knyff, 1650–1721, Dutch, active in Britain (by 1681)
Title:
Pierrepont House, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Date:
ca. 1705
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
36 3/16 x 48 inches (91.9 x 121.9 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.125
Gallery Label:
Pierrepont House, the country seat of the Earls of Kingston, was celebrated for its ornate, enclosed Dutch-style garden. As Sir Roy Strong has noted, this painting provides us with "a rare record of the delights of a late seventeenth-century town garden," and he has described the "ground-plan... [as]...quartered, and each quarter is laid out in identical patterns. Set into grass, which was enormously labor-intensive to maintain, all the beds are edged with stone and filled with flowers. All the available wall space is given over to espaliered fruit trees, while the plethora of plant containers would have been brought out for the summer months only." These plant containers, or pots, were usually made of lead in order to prevent breakage caused by fluctuations in climate, and were painted white. A life-size statue, possibly of Flora, goddess of Spring, stands in the center of the sunken garden. This garden was, above all, a jewel-like showpiece of exotic and beautiful floral treasures and not a place for games or vigorous exercise. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
