96 



GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



of Solms, the widow of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. About the year 

 1645 the Princess, dissatisfied with the old dower houses at The Hague and 

 Ryswick, conceived a wish to build a country house in part of the beautiful 

 wood which still forms the entrance to The Hague on the north side. In 

 building the house she was imbued with the idea of making it a monument 

 to the House of Orange, an idea, no doubt, supplied by Marie de Medicis, 

 Luxembourg Palace. The illustration shows the palace as it was originally 

 laid out, upon a large square plot of land surrounded by a moat, which is the 

 only part of the old gardens still remaining, for the grounds have been 

 completely changed and hardly a vestige of their original design is left. 

 Many engravings exist which show the palace as it was in the sixteenth and 



_ seventeenth cen- 



turies, and the 

 plans were pub- 

 lished by the 

 architect, Pierre 

 Post, in 1715,1 and 

 later in 1758 by 

 Bescot, showing 

 the great altera- 

 tions in the design 

 that had taken 

 place then. 



Other famous 



gardens in the 



neighbourhood of 



The Hague were those of Swanenburg, Ryxdorp, and Vredenburg, plans of 



all of which have been engraved by Pierre Post. 



At Ryswyck (illus., p. 197), belonging to the House of Nassau, the 

 gardens occupied an oblong piece of ground surrounded by a moat. The 

 palace was famous as the scene of the signing of the Treaty of Peace in 1697, 

 and the gardens were laid out in formal lines, which in their design suggest , 

 those of Herrenhausen, near Hanover. The palace was destroyed by the 

 French, but parts of the gardens still exist. 



1 Le Sale d'Orange. Batie far son altesse Amalia Princesse Douairiere d'Orange par Pierre 

 Post, 1715. 



A TOPIARY PARTERRE AT " THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 



