The only way I can justify posting these paintings on this blog is to say that the artist is American & Versailles lead the way for garden design in England and then on the the British American colonies. It is impossible for a garden historian to stay away from Versailles for very long, and so back we go. I hope you enjoy the trip.
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James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) Terminal Figure of Ceres 1911James Carroll Beckwith (1852–1917) was born in Hannibal, Missouri; however, he grew up in Chicago, where his father started a wholesale grocery business.
In 1868 at age 16, he studied art at the Chicago Academy of Design under Walter Shirlaw until the great fire of 1871, destroyed eveything there & much of the heart of the city. He then went to New York to study at the National Academy of Design.
Carroll Beckwith, as he preferred to be called, visited Versailles, France, in 1911 & 1913, where he created about 22 paintings of garden statues.
When Beckwith was in France, the government had recognized the dilapidation of the once glorious palace, and was moving to restore Versailles to its original splendor. (Franchi and Weber, Intimate Revelations: The Art of Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917), 1999)
His papers, including his sketchbooks & the diaries he kept from 1871, until his death in 1917, are held by the National Academy of Design in New York City. All of the paintings in this posting are held by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
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James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) Parterre du Nord, Fontaine des Sirenes 1913,
