Lattice Work and Reflecting Pool at Arcueil 1744 - 1747

Jean-Baptiste Oudry created this drawing, Lattice Work and Reflecting Pool at Arcueil, with black chalk, probably in the first half of the 18th century. As a painter attached to the French court, Oudry here offers us a glimpse of the kind of leisure enjoyed by the aristocracy. Gardens were central to that culture, and this image participates in its celebration. This was a world of formal codes and displays of status, as you can see from the careful geometry of the architecture that frames this landscape, and the bodies of water that offer aesthetic pleasure rather than practical value. These images offer a vital window into the past. They provide us with an archive of cultural information. You may ask yourself, how can we know more about the rituals and social practices associated with sites like this? The answer lies in detailed archival work, from estate inventories to fashion plates. It is through such research that we come to understand the social function of images like this.