Versailles-Parc (The Park, Versailles)

Eugène Atget, 1920

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Artist: Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927)
Medium: Albumen silver print
Size: Image: 22.2 × 18.1 cm (8 3/4 × 7 1/8 in.)
Culture: French
Museum: J. Paul Getty Museum
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

This statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest, with a sheaf of grain and bouquet of flowers, gazes across an avenue of leafless trees in the deserted garden of Versailles. Although this park had once been a lively and luscious playground of the royal family, Eugène Atget's photograph conveys a somber mood. The absence of people and activity has transformed the garden into a place of isolation.

The gardens at Versailles were of great importance to Louis XIV, who oversaw their design and visited them daily when he was at the retreat south of Paris. The king himself wrote a guidebook of the gardens for visitors in 1689, which was revised several times until 1705.

Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.