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Lot Essay
The architectural and figural compositions of this needlework panel are based on an engraving by Maarten van Heemskerck (d.1574) first published in 1564 and later included in the 1689 edition of Historia Sacrae Veteris et Novi Testamenti, published in Amsterdam by Claes jansz.Visscher (reproduced here). Heemskerck, was a painter and draftsman working primarily in Haarlem. Prints were an important design source for embroidered pictures and objects produced as early as the seventeenth century.
The slightly later date of this embroidery can be determined by the updated clothing styles and architectural folly within a fashionable French style garden. The garden design, originally used by Charles Mollet, gardener to Henri IV, as he modernized the gardens at Blois and Fontainebleau at the beginning of the 17th century, this parterre de broderie later became synonymous with the jardins à la française laid out by André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV at Versailles and introduced into England during the reign of Charles II.
The slightly later date of this embroidery can be determined by the updated clothing styles and architectural folly within a fashionable French style garden. The garden design, originally used by Charles Mollet, gardener to Henri IV, as he modernized the gardens at Blois and Fontainebleau at the beginning of the 17th century, this parterre de broderie later became synonymous with the jardins à la française laid out by André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV at Versailles and introduced into England during the reign of Charles II.