Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

The Origins of the Palace Gardens at
Schwetzingen
A. An Overview of the Development of the
Garden
The basic design for the Schwetzingen palace
garden (see Fig. 2) was provided by Johann
Ludwig Petri 26 , head gardener of the Duke of
Pfalz-Zweibrücken 27 . Petri came up with the
idea of quarter-circular arbour walks facing
the pavilions, thus establishing the circular
shape of the parterre as a whole. The circle
itself was bisected by an elaborate main axis,
running west from the palace and continued
through an arrangement of bosquets, and
further structured by a less showy transverse
axis. For the beds, Petri envisioned angloises 28
immediately behind the arbours, and
traditional bosquets further west. Avenues of
trees lined the central crossing and both sides
of the bosquet area.
Carl Theodor approved the design on 28th
May 1753, and Petri immediately started on
its realization. As the pleasure garden would
take up the space currently occupied by the
kitchen gardens, Petri also laid out a new
kitchen garden. After 1756, however, work
proceeded very slowly due to financial and
staff shortages. When Petri left the Elector’s
service at his own request in 1758, only the
basins in the parterre, part of the avenues and
the arbour walks (without their central and
terminal pavilions) had been completed.
Independent of the garden itself, work
had started in 1757 on a hunting park, the
“Sternallee” (“Star avenue”), in a stretch of
woodland further southwest. Here, too, things
came to a standstill in 1759.
In 1761, Nicolas de Pigage took over as chief
architect for all the projects. The next year a
fresh start was made with a new team. Pigage,
supervisor of gardens and water features
since 1749, and building director since
1752, was named garden director; Theodor
26 Johann Ludwig Petri, 1714-1794, landscape gardener, head
gardener at Zweibrücken.
27 Christian IV von Pfalz-Zweibrücken, 1722-1775.
28 The angloise is a type of bosquet characteristic of the Rococo
style; it is described in the section “The angloises” (see below.).
VI. Schwetzingen – Historical Context
van Wynder 29 was taken on as chief court
gardener and Johann Wilhelm Sckell 30 as court
gardener.
It was necessary to find a new accommodation
for the plants in tubs, and so in 1761, Pigage
started on a new orangery with its own
parterre north of Petri’s pleasure garden; it
was first used in the winter of 1762/63. At
the same time, work started on the angloise
and “natural theatre” adjoining the orangery
garden to the west. From 1762 to 1766 the
orchard and kitchen gardens, on the southern
periphery of the garden, were enlarged and
restructured.
In 1762, Pigage presented an “ideal design”
(cp. Fig. 3) that retained Petri’s basic layout,
but extended the bosquet area westwards,
concluding with a basin. Those parts of the
garden already under construction at the
time are depicted quite realistically in the
design; the features Pigage envisioned on the
southern and western peripheries, however,
were never built. The star avenue, in the plan
designed to take up more space than the
entire garden, was never realized in those
dimensions either.
29 Theodor van Wynder, d. 1777, chief court gardener 1762-1777.
30 Johann Wilhelm Sckell,1721 – 1792, court gardener.
VI.
Fig. 4: Nicolas de Pigage, 1767,
execution plan for the enlarging
of the garden, original lost
(Photo also missing).
183