Vaux-le-Vicomte , only about 45 km from Paris, is all about symmetry and balance.
Built in the mid-17th Century by Nicolas Fouquet, then Superintendent of Finances for the king of France Louis XIV the Sun King, this château and garden inspired Versailles.
The architect Louis Le Vau (who later designed Versailles) worked closely with the painter Charles Le Brun for the interiors and the landscape gardener André Le Nôtre for the remarkable garden. Here is the first expression of the French formal garden, to be developed by him on a much larger scale at Versailles.
The team Fouquet commissioned were young men who went on to work directly for Louis XIV.
You can see right through the château from the front entrance to the statue of Hercules resting at the far point of the garden – it is all balanced, playing with perspective.
Seen from this viewpoint, the château appears to be mounted on terraces.
Vaux-le-Vicomte, still privately owned, is relatively unknown by the public outside France yet visiting it one can understand where the ideas for Versailles were developed.
Needless to say, Louis XIV became jealous and claimed the property for himself after Fouquet’s trial and imprisonment. To learn more of that read a bit about the history.
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