The allées in the gardens of Chiswick House, with a view of the Rustic House, the Doric Column and the Deer House

This painting forms part of one of the original sets of views painted by Pieter Andreas Rysbrack, the eldest brother of the sculptor John Michael, of the gardens at Chiswick House, the Neo-Palladian country seat of architect Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753). The renowned gardens were designed by the Earl in collaboration with visionary architect William Kent (1685-1748), and represent an important moment in the shift towards the English landscape garden, moving away from formal symmetry toward naturalistic vistas, winding paths, and artfully placed classical sculpture. During his Grand Tour in 1714-15, the Earl would have visited numerous eminent gardens throughout Italy and France which undoubtedly galvanized his enthusiasm for their design, from those at Andrea Palladio's villas to the vast expanses of Versailles. His retinue on that trip in fact included a gardener, who may have accompanied the Earl to record developments in the discipline on the Continent (Sicca, op. cit., p. 36).

From their conception, the gardens at Chiswick were constantly changing as Burlington and Kent continued to experiment with new designs and features, including pools, grottoes, cascades, orangeries and decorative buildings based on Classical examples such as temples or obelisks, called fabriques. This present painting shows two of the avenues which formed part of the so-called patte d'oie (goosefoot in French): a point where multiple paths radiate out from a central point. The avenues are carefully formulated sightlines, which terminate in some feature of interest. On the left is Napoleon's Walk, at the end of which is the Rustic House (at one point called 'Napoleon's Temple'), which held a bust of Napoleon; in the centre, a pathway leading to a Doric column topped with a sculpture, and on the right, a Deer House designed by Burlington.

The Earl commissioned two sets of eight views from Rysbrack in the years around 1730, presumably to hang at different residences, and the resulting paintings were instrumental in establishing the eighteenth-century vogue for house and garden views. The majority of one set survives at Chatsworth, and six from the set of eight that originally included the present work are in the collection at Chiswick House, having once belonged to Burlington's sister, Lady Elizabeth Boyle.