A complete set of sixteen views of the magnificent palace, gardens, mazes, fountains, sculpture, ponds, and pavilions of the Royal estate Het Loo, near Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, the most splendid country estate of King William III of England (William of Orange). This estate was the finest example of Anglo-Dutch formal gardens, garden art, and architecture. Pieter Schenk I (1660-1711) originally published the present views in his six-part Paridisus oculorum (1702), where Het Loo was ''undoubtedly the highlight of the series'' (Anglo-Dutch Garden, p. 201). The six parts were also issued separately with the dedications to the owners serving as title-pages, as is the case here.
William of Orange (1650-1702) bought the medieval castle Het Loo in 1684, when he was Dutch head of state, and it quickly became his favourite hunting lodge. He had it completely rebuilt under the architect Jacob Roman (1640-1716) beginning in 1686. When William and his wife Mary Stuart were crowned King and Queen of England in 1689, however, work on the estate was greatly expanded on a royal scale, with sculpture commissioned from Romeyn de Hooghe, and the elaborate fountains and gardens shown in the present prints. By the time Schenk produced the present print series (just before William's death in 1702) it was one of the world's grandest royal residences. The present set of Schenk's prints is watermarked Strasbourg Bend = IV (similar to Heawood 73 & 78, from ca. 1720), so it may have been published by Pieter Schenk II soon after his father's death.
The binding shows very slight traces of use. The leaves are very lightly foxed. Otherwise a fine, wide-margined copy of the prints of the William of Orange's splendid royal estate Het Loo. The Anglo-Dutch Garden 68; Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) XXV, p. 290, 1428-1443; Springer Bibl. Overzicht, pp. 43-44; STCN 840916604 (7 copies, 1 incomplete); Wurzbach II, p. 576, no. 311