“Vier broertjes in de tuin” (four brothers in the garden). probably in the Netherlands, ca. 1910, photographer unknown, via Spaarnestad Collection of the Nationaal Archief (Netherlands).
Category: European gardens
Memory of a summer
One of the terraces of Hotel Splendid (I believe), in the spa town of Châtel-Guyon, France, ca. 1900 – ca. 1910, via Vladimir Tkalčić on flickr (used under CC license).
The writing across the postcard says “Il y a une vingtaine d’années” — “Twenty years ago.” On the back is an undated note addressed to someone in Zagreb. The affixed stamp was issued in 1927.
Parc de Bagatelle, Paris
A re-post from 2013. . .
Strolling in Bagatelle Park, Paris, France, ca. 1920, a hand-colored glass lantern slide by an unknown photographer, via Archives of American Gardens, Garden Club of America Collection, Smithsonian Institution (used here by permission).
(Click on the picture to enlarge it.)
The park has been a botanical garden inside the Bois de Boulogne since 1905. Today, it’s best known for its over 9,000 rose bushes. The land was originally laid out in 1777 in a fashionable Anglo-Chinois style as a garden for the Chateau de Bagatelle — built by the Count of Artois in only 64 days as part of a bet with Marie Antoinette.
Another well-dressed lady in the same garden, also ca. 1920, an autochrome by an unknown photographer, via Photographic Heritage on flickr (under CC license).
The Archives of American Gardens (top image) holds over 60,000 photos and records documenting 6,300 historic and contemporary American gardens. At its core are almost 3,000 hand-colored glass lantern and 35mm slides donated by the Garden Club of America, which is the source of this image.
Lorraine, France
Grave of General Ernest Ancelin, Fort de Douaumont (Lorraine), France, September 20, 1920, by Georges Chevalier, via Archives of the Planet Collection – Albert Kahn Museum /Département des Hauts-de-Seine.
The General fell during an attack on the fort in October 1916.
The image above is one of about seventy-two thousand that were commissioned and then archived by Albert Kahn, a wealthy French banker and pacifist, between 1909 and 1931. Kahn sent thirteen photographers and filmmakers to fifty countries “to fix, once and for all, aspects, practices, and modes of human activity whose fatal disappearance is no longer ‘a matter of time.'”* The resulting collection is called Archives de la Planète and now resides in its own museum at Kahn’s old suburban estate at Boulogne-Billancourt, just west of Paris. Since June 2016, the archive has also been available for viewing online here.
*words of Albert Kahn, 1912. Also, the above photo (A 23 854) is © Collection Archives de la Planète – Musée Albert-Kahn and used under its terms, here.
Front steps, Finland
Front garden and steps, probably Finland, ca. 1900, by Hugo Simberg, via Finnish National Gallery on flickr (under CC license).
So much activity and anticipation in this shadowy old photo: the three women on the top left are waiting for the appearance of someone at the door. Below them, a toddler has been left to perch a little precariously on the steps. On the right, a woman with a very large hat and a little girl pose for the camera. Vines everywhere.
(There’s a larger view here.)
enclos*ure 