Mathias Diesel was the gardener of Max Emanuel, elector of Bavaria (1662–1726), a relative and ally of Louis XIV. In 1706, Diesel was sent to France to study “the noble art of gardening”; he stayed for six years. After his return, he published several series of garden views engraved after his own drawings. The first suite begins with Versailles and Marly, followed by German and Austrian country palaces, as well as the author’s own inventions. In 1718, Diesel was appointed engineer in the elector’s gardens in and around Munich, where he worked under the supervision of Dominique Girard (ca. 1680–1738), a disciple of André Le Nôtre.

Another foreigner influenced by French models was Thomas Jefferson, who visited Marly in 1784 and 1786. His design for the University of Virginia, also featuring a central building accompanied by two rows of interconnected pavilions, can be viewed as an attempt to translate a royal country estate into an American college campus.