Paris, The Parc Monceau Public Garden, 1926 - Silver Gelatin B and W Photography

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Description

A unique original silver gelatin black and white photography, Paris, The Parc Monceau public garden, 20th of June, 1926.
Features:
… Read more A unique original silver gelatin black and white photography, Paris, The Parc Monceau public garden, 20th of June, 1926.
Features:
Original Silver Gelatin Print Photography Unframed.
Press Photography.
Press Agency: Anonymous.
Photographer: Anonymous.
Title: Paris, The Parc Monceau public garden, June 20th, 1926. View of the Roman colonnades in the garden.
Provenance: Private collection.
Image Size: 4.57 in. high (11.6 cm) x 6.22 in. wide (15.8 cm) - Archivally matted in a 17 x 13 mat.
The piece will be shipped in a mat (17 x 13 in.) that fits a standard-sized frame.
No ink stamp, no legend.
(The last picture shows you the Parc and the Roman colonnades as it is today).

About:
Parc Monceau is a public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares (20.3 acres).
The park was established by Phillippe d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres, a cousin of King Louis XVI, fabulously wealthy, and active in court politics and society. In 1769 he had begun purchasing the land where the park is located. In 1778, he decided to create a public park and employed the writer and painter Louis Carrogis Carmontelle to design the gardens.
The Duke was a close friend of the Prince of Wales, later George IV, and a lover of all things English. He intended to create what was then called an Anglo-Chinese or English garden, on the earlier model of Stowe House in England (1730–1738), with its examples of the architectural folly, or fantastic reconstructions of buildings of different ages and continents. It was similar in style to several other examples of the French landscape garden built at about the same time, including the Desert de Retz, the gardens of the Château de Bagatelle, and the Folie Saint James.
The garden designed by Carmontelle was finished in 1779. It contained a miniature ancient Egyptian pyramid, a Roman colonnade, antique statues, a pond of water lilies, a Tatar tent, a farmhouse, a Dutch windmill, a temple of Mars, a minaret, an Italian vineyard, an enchanted grotto, and "a gothic building serving as a chemistry laboratory," as described by Carmontelle. In addition to the follies, the garden featured servants dressed in oriental and other exotic costumes, and unusual animals, such as camels.
As garden fashions changed, in 1781 parts of the park were remodeled into a more traditional English landscape style by the Scottish landscape gardener Thomas Blaikie.
While The Duke was a supporter of the ideas of the French Revolution, and even voted, as a member of the Assembly, for the execution of his cousin, Louis XVI, it did not save him. He was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793, and the park was nationalized.
After the monarchy was restored, the park was returned to the family of the Duke. During the Second Empire, the family sold lots within the park to real estate developers, who built luxurious townhouses, reducing the size of the park by half. The remaining part of the park was purchased by the city of Paris in 1860.
In August 1861 Parc Monceau became the first new public park in Paris to be created by Baron Haussmann as part of the grand transformation of Paris begun by Emperor Louis Napoleon. Haussmann embellished the park with a rich collection of exotic trees and flowers from around the world.
Claude Monet painted a series of three paintings of the park in the spring of 1876. He painted three further paintings of the park in 1878. Hector Berlioz was also fond of the park.
(Credit: Wikipedia). See less