Palace of Versailles, View of the forecourt.
(Chasteau de Versailles, Veu de l'avantcour.)
1682
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mr George Collins Levey, 1879
- Gallery location
- Not on display
About this work
In the late sixteenth century, French printmaker Jacques Androuet du Cerceau became the first to conceive of representing architectural sites through comprehensive series of bird’s-eye views, plans, elevations and sections. In the seventeenth century, printmakers such as Israël Silvestre were enlisted to document Versailles in a similar manner throughout the palace’s successive phases of expansion. Silvestre’s official remit was to make ‘drawings of Architecture, views and perspectives of the royal Houses, carousels, and other public assemblies’, and he received an annual pension of 400 livres on those terms from 1664 until his death.
Artwork Details
printed in ink l.r.: Dessigné et graué par Isr. Siluestre en 1682.
Gift of Mr George Collins Levey, 1879