Marie-Antoinette’s Garden: An Eighteenth-Century Herbarium
Elisabeth de Feydeau (author), Alain Baraton (editor)
Description
A horticultural tour of Marie-Antoinette’s domain, the lavishly constructed gardens at Versailles, accompanied by eighteenth-century botanical watercolors from Pierre-Joseph Redouté and his contemporaries.
Plants, flowers, and trees were Marie-Antoinette’s passion; she transformed the Petit Trianon’s gardens into an enchanted refuge from the oppressive shackles of Versailles. Based on archival documents, this book meanders through Marie-Antoinette’s estate as the queen herself would have walked it: traversing hyacinths, buttercups, and anemones in the French Gardens, via winding paths in the Anglo-Chinese Gardens, through the conifers of the Belvedere Gardens where fabulous nocturnal parties were hosted, past the entrancing aromas of the shrubs surrounding the Temple of Love, to the wildflowers of the Garden of Solitude.
This fascinating reconstruction, which plunges the reader into the eighteenth century, includes descriptions of the cosmetic and medicinal uses of the garden’s plants, anecdotes from the royal court, and watercolours of the herbarium.
Review
Marie-Antoinette’s Garden is a beautifully produced book to delight any lover of gardens, or botanical illustrations.
Using archival documents Elisabeth de Feydeau takes the reader through a fascinating history of the different gardens at Versailles including:
The French Garden
The Belvedere
The English Garden
The Wood of Solitude.
The Queen’s Hamlet
The Temple of Love
Her detailed narrative also shares the properties of the various plants, including an inventory of the seed-bearing trees.
In addition, the plants and flowers are beautifully captured throughout with exquisite watercolours by celebrated botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté and others.
This beautiful book is an opportunity to travel back in time discovering the creativity and beauty of this famous garden.
Highly Recommended! One of our Favourite Books of 2025!
Marie-Antoinette’s Garden: An Eighteenth-Century Herbarium
Elisabeth de Feydeau (author), Alain Baraton (editor) is published by Editions Flammarion
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