Le jardin du château de Vaux-le-Vicomte
French Garden
On the orders of Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finance of Louis XIV, three geniuses of French art: Le Vau, Le Nôtre and le Brun created together, between 1652 and 1661, Vaux le Vicomte, the masterpiece where the and the garden are inseparable.
André Le Nôtre
Of all the gardens created by André Le Nôtre, it is that of Vaux-le-Vicomte where we most clearly discover the genius of this landscape architect.
For the first time, Le Nôtre created on a rectangular space of 33 ha, obeying a single axis of 1500 m, the grammar of the classical garden, the exercises and variations of which he applied everywhere else.
The terraces surrounding the castle are decorated with flowers and boxwood embroidery and the following ones are made up of lawns. This plant program is embellished with surprises in the form of lateral escapes, illusions that manipulate vision and distances. And everywhere, water, in abundance, dormant or springing, today totaling 9 ha divided into 24 basins (compared to 40 in 1661).
Exhibition in the gardens
In the basement of the castle, an exhibition dedicated to the work of Le Nôtre recreates the atmosphere of a French garden and allows visitors to discover the main works of the landscaper – gardener which adorn the surroundings of Paris.
The exhibition ends with an extraordinary interactive model recounting the creation of the Vaux gardens, and highlighting the rules which characterize the work of Le Nôtre.
Three centuries after its creation, nature had reasserted itself and destroyed the garden; As for the buildings, they seemed doomed to demolition when in 1875, Mr. Alfred Sommier bought the estate and completely restored it. His direct descendants, the de Vogüé family, strive to continue this work by sharing it with the public.
The castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte
77950 Maincy
