Tag: fountain

Kensington Gardens, London

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Yellow flag iris (I. pseudacorus) in the basins of the Italian Gardens of Kensington Gardens, London, June 1924, by Roger Dumas, via Archives of the Planet Collection – Albert Kahn Museum /Département des Hauts-de-Seine.

These water gardens are over 150 years old and may have been a gift from Prince Albert to Queen Victoria.

This autochrome 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 43 199) is © Collection Archives de la Planète – Musée Albert-Kahn and used under its terms, here.

U.S. Botanic Garden

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Euphorbia milii, U.S. Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C., 1920, by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The plant is a native of Madagascar. Its common name is “crown of thorns.”

The winter garden: Nice, France

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nice-winter-garden-library-of-congressWinter garden (interior), Nice, French Riviera, between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900, a photochrom by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

There is another view of this structure here. It was probably connected to one of the city’s grand casinos.

Vintage landscape: Cairo, Egypt

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Cairo garden, Matson Photo Service, Library of Congress“Cairo’s public gardens on Gezireh,” between 1950 and 1977, hand-colored slide by Matson Photo Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

This garden may have been located on or near the current site of the Cairo Marriott Hotel.

Life in gardens: elephant ride

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Zoological Park, Lisbon, Bibliotheca de Arte, Lisbon, flickr.Jardim Zoológico, Lisbon, Portugal, 1927, by Mário Novais, via Biblioteca de Arte / Art Library Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian on flickr (used under CC license).

The Lisbon Zoo was founded in 1884 and moved to its current location in 1905. This may be a photo of the zoo’s first African elephant, which it received in 1926, a gift from the King of Italy.