This bas-relief wall panel adorns the stair hall of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, designed by the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel for Louis XV and his mistress Mme de Pompadour, though it is indelibly associated with its subsequent owner, Queen Marie-Antoinette. The Petit Trianon is one of Gabriel’s masterworks and its stair hall one of his most famous rooms. The centerpiece of the military-themed trophy is a shield bearing the head of Medusa; in Greek mythology this shield was one of the attributes of Athena, and could turn enemies who looked at it to stone.

French mat and ebonized wood frame.
Frame dimensions: 36 x 44 cm; 14″ x 17½”

The château of Maisons, completed in 1651, is the celebrated architect François Mansart’s masterwork and an important milestone in the development of French classicism. The garden elevation overlooks the Seine and is raised on a decorative dry moat which separates it from the parterre before it. This arched entry portal, Italianate in inspiration and boldly sculpted by the atelier of Jacques Sarrazin, is one of pair set at either end of this plinth and the only one to be finished. The watercolor is reproduced in our book Pleasure Pavilions and Follies and was recently reacquired.

Unframed.
Image dimensions: 22.5 x 24.5 cm; 9″ x 9¾” with wide margins.

This watercolor depicts the original Pavillon Monceau, built for the duc de Chartres, later the duc d’Orléans, on his estate of Monceau, today the Parc Monceau in Paris’ 17th arrondissement.

French mat and antiqued, hand-gilt frame.
Frame dimensions: 55 x 63 cm; 21½” x 25″

The extensive landscape gardens at Bad Mergentheim (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) feature this Chinoiserie pavilion (“das Schellenhäusle”), erected in 1802 and recently restored.

French mat and antiqued, hand-gilt frame.
Frame dimensions: 41 x 46 cm; 16″ x 18″

The Pagoda at Chantilly, built circa 1762, launched pre-Revolutionary France’s Chinoiserie mania. Brightly colored and naively embellished with picturesque ornaments and fanciful if gibberish Chinese glyphs, it was the first Chinoiserie folly built in the period and became the inspiration for the hundreds of pagodas erected in French landscape gardens during the reign of Louis XVI.

Currently on exhibition loan until September 2020.

French mat and antiqued, hand-gilt frame.
Frame dimensions: 40 x 50 cm; 16″ x 20″

The handsome Loire Valley estate of Ménars was purchased by Mme de Pompadour and bequeathed to her brother, the marquis de Marigny, who was named (thanks to her influence) as Superintendent of the King’s Buildings, making the young man the most influential figure in French architecture during the reign of Louis XV. Marigny employed the era’s foremost architects to embellish his estate, among them Jacques-Germain Soufflot, who designed this unrealized project for a perfectly harmonious Temple of Love.

French mat and antiqued, hand-gilt frame.
Frame dimensions: 37 x 41.5 cm; 14.5″ x 16.5″

This small residence, set in a formal pocket garden, was completed in 1752 for Jacques Collin, secretary to Mme de Pompadour, in the town of Versailles. Its elegant proportions and understated ornament are characteristic of the maison de plaisance form, which was quite popular among the nobility of the period. These intimate, luxuriously furnished pavilions served as privileged retreats and as backdrops for informal entertainment.  

French mat and ebonized wood frame.
Frame dimensions: 48 x 38 cm; 19″ x 15″

This life-size bronze of a rearing brown bear was sculpted by the Brooklyn native and animalier, Frederick Roth, for the 1937 renovation of the Central Park Zoo. The sculpture is actually a fountain and its base is ringed by small frogs spouting water jets.

French mat and ebonized, lacquered wood frame.
Frame dimensions: 30 x 34 cm; 12″ x 13½”

The watercolor depicts a mature fan palm in a Versailles planter, as found at the château’s Orangerie.

French mat and ebonized wood frame.
Frame dimensions: 23 x 32 cm; 9″ x 13″

A nineteenth-century English terracotta vase with elegant foliate fluting.

French mat and standard gilt frame.
Frame dimensions: 35 x 36 cm; 15½” x 15¾”