Claude-Henri Watelet
Claude-Henri Watelet (28 August 1718 – 12 January 1786) was a rich French ''
fermier-général'' who was an amateur painter, a well-respected
etcher, a writer on the arts and a connoisseur of gardens. Watelet's inherited privilege of farming taxes in the
Orléanais left him free to pursue his avocations, art and literature and gardens. His ''Essai sur les jardins'', 1774, firmly founded on English ideas expressed by
Thomas Whately, introduced the English landscape garden to France, as the ''jardin Anglois''. The sociable Watelet, who was born and died in Paris, was at the center of the French art world of his time.
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