This engraving, part of an influential 1638 treatise on garden design, is the earliest image of the park of Versailles. It demonstrates that elaborate ornamental parterres existed at Versailles before the arrival of Louis XIV and André Le Nôtre. A Huguenot soldier, Jacques Boyceau de La Barauderie became royal gardener and landscape architect under Henri IV (r. 1589–1610) and Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643); after his death, his work was continued by his nephew Jacques de Menours (1591–1637), who also edited this publication.