Château d'Anet, Renaissance château in Anet, France
The Château d'Anet is a Renaissance château near Dreux in Eure-et-Loir, built by Philibert de l'Orme from 1547 to 1552 for Diane de Poitiers. Its surviving west wing, reserved for offices, was reworked by the Duke of Vendôme, and the free-standing chapel has a Greek-cross plan under a diagonally coffered dome. The entrance facade is crowned by a stag between two hounds above a clock, with a reclining figure carved over the arched portal.
King Henry II commissioned architect Philibert de l'Orme to build this castle between 1547 and 1552. It was created as a residence for Diane de Poitiers, an influential figure at the French court.
The bronze group over the entrance portal shows Diana with a stag and four hounds; it was originally an automaton whose stag moved its head and whose hounds raised a rear leg to mark the hours. The present group is a reproduction, the original having been melted down during the Revolution. The semicircular bronze relief above the portal is the Nymph of Fontainebleau, commissioned from Benvenuto Cellini by Francis I for Fontainebleau but never installed there; below it runs a Latin motto naming the house as sacred to Diana.
The château stands in Anet, in the Eure-et-Loir department, about 70 kilometres west of Paris. Only the west wing and the free-standing chapel survive from Philibert de l'Orme's plan; the entrance facade was moved to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Visitors approach through the entrance pavilion, whose clock tower carries the stag-and-hounds group above the arched portal.
The château holds one of France's first Italian-inspired parterre gardens, designed by Jacques Mollet. This garden style later influenced how royal French gardens were created.
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