LIST ON EBAY Versailles Grove Of Colonnade France1705 De Fer Unusual Antique Original Print US $33.01 Original Title: La Colonade de Versailles. A Paris, chez de Fer dans l’Isle au Palais sur le Quai. Description: Striking and highly detailed unusual 1705 Nicolas de Fer's copper engraved view of the Grove of the Colonnade is a grove in the gardens of Versailles. The Bosquet de la Colonnade was built in 1685 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart on the site of an older grove called the Bosquet des Sources, at the instigation of Louis XIV, who wanted a "marble colonnade with large fountains". The colonnade is made up of 32 Ionic columns of alternating white and pink marble connected by arcades. Each column is crowned by a pot-to-fire. Behind each column is a pilaster forming abutment. Under each arch is a fountain. Date: 1705 ( undated ) Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 37,9 x 25,5 Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains. Map old original colored. Wide margin to the top. Short lower margin. Right lateral margin cut very shortly. Wide left lateral margins. Small foxing and browning. Corners partially missing. Small warming at the left lateral margin. Small waterstain. Conditions are as you can see in the images. Cartographer: Nicholas de Fer (1646-1720) was the son of a map seller, Antoine de Fer, and grew to be one of the most well-known mapmakers in France in the seventeenth century. He was apprenticed at twelve years old to Louis Spirinx, an engraver. When his father died in 1673, Nicholas helped his mother run the business until 1687, when he became the sole proprietor. His earliest known work is a map of the Canal of Languedoc in 1669, while some of his earliest engravings are in the revised edition of Methode pour Apprendre Facilement la Geographie (1685). In 1697, he published his first world atlas. Perhaps his most famous map is his wall map of America, published in 1698, with its celebrated beaver scene (engraved by Hendrick van Loon, designed by Nicolas Guerard). After his death in 1720, the business passed to his sons-in-law, Guillaume Danet and Jacques-Francois Benard. 11748