Author: KRAUSEN, Johann Ulrich
Title: Description de la grotte de Versailles oder Beschreibung der Grotten zu Versailles; mit zwantzig schönen Kupffern den Kunstliebenden zu Nutzen
Description: Augspurg Johann Ulrich Krausen ca. 1680 Petit in-folio, 12 + 16 pp. de texte en français et allemand + 20 planches gravées sur cuivre, dont 3 doubles. Légendes en français, latin et allemand. Page de titre restaurée. Mouillure dans la marge inférieure sur les premières pages. Couverture d'époque usagée et décolorée ¶ 'The Grotte de Thetis at Versailles (1664-72), is the supreme example of the grotto-nymphaeum; once a reservoir, it was within this triple arcaded structure that "the King goes ... to take rest from his great works [so that he can] return with the same ardour as the Sun who begins again to light the world". Behind the triumphal arch were niches resplendent with nymphs and tritons attending Apollo, and hydraulic machines which set in play "an infinity of small crystal globes, among a confused mass of drips and atoms of water that seem to move in this place as the atoms of light which one discovers in the rays of the Sun" (Andre Felibien, Description..., 1676)' (Oxford Companion to Gardens, p. 237). The grotto itself was demolished in 1684 to make way for Mansart's southern wing at Versailles

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