Once a small château between the royal residences of Vincennes and Fontainebleau, the estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte was purchased in 1641 by Nicolas Fouquet, an ambitious 26-year-old member of the Parlement of Paris. Fouquet was an avid patron of the arts, attracting many artists with his generosity.
When Fouquet became King Louis XIV’s Superintendent of Finances in 1656, he commissioned Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to renovate his estate and garden to match his grand ambition. Fouquet's artistic and cultivated personality subsequently brought out the best in the three.
This round’s discussion is now closed! 4 comments posted
Rui Zhang
Magnificent building, would love to see it.   Posted: 07/22/2024 18:42:34
Sylvie Tas
I like the vantage point with the statue in the foreground.
Also, the gray in the roof matches the gray in the monument.   Posted: 07/23/2024 17:24:03
Zhicai Ren
The surface color of castles and sculptures reflects their age and vicissitudes, and I like such buildings.   Posted: 07/24/2024 21:58:16
Gary Walter
A very nice representation of 17th century architecture. Since it was from your archives there may not have been enough extra space around the image to remove the lens distortion. I copied your image into Lightroom and used the Transform tool in auto mode to attempt to straighten the building. Then an additional -17 vertical (manual slider) was added to improve the building vertical symmetry. The little bit missing on the left did not seem to me to make a significant difference. It would be nice to have a bit more on the right for the statue.   Posted: 07/31/2024 14:45:41