Vue du Château de Marli. Prise du bas du grand parterre. . .

A magnificent view of a stunning Château de Marli by the celebrated landscape engraver Jacques Rigaud (1681-1754). At the Château of Marly, Louis XIV of France escaped from the formal rigors he was constructing at Versailles.
Small rooms meant fewer company, and simplified protocol, courtiers, who fought among themselves for invitations to Marly, were housed in a revolutionary design of twelve pavilions built in matching pairs flanking the central sheets of water, which were fed one from the other by prim formalized cascades.
Providing a sufficient water supply for the fountains at Versailles had been a problem from the outset. The construction of the Marly hydraulic machine, actually located in Bougival, driven by the current of the Seine moving fourteen vast paddlewheels, was a miracle of modern hydraulic engineering, perhaps the largest integrated machine of the 17th century.

Towards the middle of the eighteenth century a trend developed amongst English and European artists and printmakers, which sought to visually record their country's natural beauties. Sparked by a sense of national confidence and patriotism, artists and printmakers began to publish topographical prints of important sights and architectural attractions. In addition to being a visual record of the countryside they were meant to encourage public recognition of national treasures. These topographical prints were aimed by foreign tourists who desired a memento of their travels, or at those vicarious tourists who collected topographical prints instead of traveling.
By joining this printing trend Jacques Rigaud made a name for himself, and became one of the most successful French landscape engravers. He dedicated his artistic life to producing delicate engraving of national beauties across France. He executed a large series of works depicting France's stately homes and he worked in England, where he was commissioned to illustrate the celebrated gardens at Stowe.