Editing Het Loo Palace (section)

==Garden==

The private "Great Garden" is situated behind the house. This Dutch [[Baroque garden]], often nicknamed the "[[Gardens of Versailles|Versailles]] of Holland", actually serves to show more differences than similarities. It is still within the general Baroque formula established by [[André Le Nôtre]]: perfect symmetry, axial layout radiating gravel walks, [[parterre]]s with fountains, basins and statues.
[[File:Tuin van Paleis het Loo Apeldoorn.jpg|thumb|The palace, seen from the gardens.]]

The garden as it appears in the engraving was designed by Le Nôtre's nephew, [[Claude Desgotz]].<ref>Two proposals by Desgotz for the Great Garden, one substantially as it appears in the engraving, in the National Museum, Stockholm, are illustrated by Runar Strandberg, "The French formal garden after Le Nostre", in ''The French Formal Garden'', Elizabeth B. MacDougall and F. Hamilton Hazlehurst, editors, 1974, (Dumbarton Oaks) figs 15 (substantially as executed) and 16.</ref> Throughout his military and diplomatic career, William of Orange was the continental antagonist of [[Louis XIV]], the commander of the forces opposed to those of absolute power and Roman Catholicism. André Le Nôtre's main axis at Versailles, continued by [[Grand Canal of Versailles|the canal]], runs up to the horizon. [[Daniel Marot]] and Desgotz's Het Loo garden does not dominate the landscape as Louis' German imitators do, though in his idealized plan, Desgotz extends the axis. The main garden, with conservative rectangular beds instead of more elaborately shaped ones, is an enclosed space surrounded by raised walks, as a Renaissance garden might be, tucked into the woods for private enjoyment, the garden not of a king but of a [[stadtholder]]. At its far end a shaded crosswalk of trees disguised the central vista. The orange trees set out in wooden boxes and wintered in an [[orangery]], which were a feature of all gardens, did double duty for the House of Orange-Nassau.
[[File:Albert Xavery - Abduction of a Sabine woman.jpg|thumb|160px|''Abduction of a Sabine woman'' by [[Albert Xavery]]]]
Outside the garden there are a few straight scenic [[avenue (landscape)|avenues]], for following the hunt in a carriage, or purely for the vista afforded by an avenue. Few of the "green rooms" cut into the woodlands in imitation of the ''cabinets de verdure'' of Versailles that are shown in the engraving were ever actually executed at Het Loo.

The patron of the Sun King's garden was [[Apollo]]. [[Peter the Great]] would opt for [[Samson]], springing the jaws of Sweden's heraldic lion. William opted for [[Heracles|Hercules]].

In the 18th century, William III's Baroque garden as seen in the engraving was replaced by an [[English landscape garden]].

The lost gardens of Het Loo were fully restored beginning in 1970 and completed in time to celebrate the building's 1984 tercentenary. Het Loo's new brickwork, [[latticework]] and ornaments are as raw as they must have been in 1684 and will mellow with time.