Silvestre Views and Elevations of the Tuileries {1879} NGV [PR]

Silvestre, Israel (1621-91; French)
Views and Elevations of the Tuileries (1668-73)
9 Engravings
Gift of George Collins Levey 1879
National Gallery of Victoria (p.183.94-1 etc., as listed below)

= Levey gift, cat.45-53

[photo: View of Palace & gardens (p.183.104-1)

Silvestre’s prints document the modernization of the Tuileries Palace (begun for Catherine de Medici in the 1560s), and the establishment of its famous gardens, during the 1660s and 1670s, to the designs of Louis Le Vau (1612-70) and André Le Nôtre (1613-1700) respectively.

The court moved into the renovated palace in 1667, but then transferred first to the Louvre (1672) and then to Versailles (1682). Most of the Tuileries palace was destroyed by fire during the Paris Commune (1871) and subsequently demolished.

In the sequence listed in Suite et Arrangement (1727), the prints, several in two parts, are as follows:
Plan general du palais des Thuilleries 1669 (p.183.? {number 98-1 cancelled} & p.183.97-1) [Levey gift, cat.45-46]
Veue du Palais des Tuilleries du costé de l’Entrée 1669 (p.183.98-1 & 99-1) [Levey gift, cat.47-48]
Veue du Palais des Tuilleries du costé du Jardin 1668 (p.183.100-1 & 101-1) [Levey gift, cat.49-50]
Plan du Jardin du Palais des Thuilleries 1672 (p.183.94-1) [Levey gift, cat.51]
Veue et perspective du Palais, et Jardins des Tuilleries 1670 (p.183.104-1) [Levey gift, cat.52]
Veue des Jardins du Palais des Thuilleries, du costé du Cours de la Reyne 1673 (p.183.102-1) [Levey gift, cat.53] 

See also Marot (J.) Plans and elevations of the Louvre 1676/78 {1879} NGV [PR].

Refs.

Not listed in NGV 1894 or 1905

The individual prints are listed in the NGV’s online catalogue, as by an unknown engraver, and without reproductions, among “15 views, plans, etc, of the Louvre & Palace of Tuileries”: see e.g. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/39143/. Author’s ID photo reproduced here

Cf. Suite et Arrangement (1727), p.3 (Cabinet du roi, vol.4) ; and Duplessis Cabinet du roi (1869), p.14. For the architectural development of the Tuileries under Louis XIV, see e.g. Berger A Royal Passion (1994), esp.pp.38ff.; and see also Fuhring Kingdom of Images (2015), pp.90ff (Architecture and Views)