Les Enclos
Mr. Gulbenkian's Interrupted Garden
by Cristina Castel-Branco
Hardback (Published)
(March 2026)
ISBN: 9782503620886
Price: $63.00
Out of stock
This book puts forward new information sourced on the areas of gardens and horticulture, from hundreds of letters, reports and original processes archived around the theme of Les Enclos, the property Calouste Gulbenkian acquired in Normandy towards the end of his life.
The reality of Calouste Gulbenkian unfurls in two lives that influence 20th century history and with strong repercussions for Portugal. An oil engineer educated in London, a multi-millionaire, and considered the richest man in the world in his time. Gulbenkian turned his life into a rigorously planned success, becoming a collector of art and leaving behind the fabulous legacy for his Foundation to cherish and care for his art collection on exhibition in Lisbon. Emerging from his sentence There are two great objectives that I’ve never managed to attain in my life; becoming a scientist and having a garden in my own style where I might dream, this new biography of Gulbenkian conveys his sensitivity towards nature and, correspondingly, gardens, which was his secret to a very successful relationship with life. In 1937, he purchased Les Enclos, an estate with 33 hectares in Normandy, with a view of the sea. In 1940: Interruption! German occupation! and on the promontory where he thought about building his home, the trees were felled, bunkers built alongside railway lines and all subsequently bombarded by the Allies.As from 1942, in his refuge in Portugal, we encounter CG committed to rebuilding the Les Enclos garden from afar. The contrast with the Sintra Mountains is total. Here, he rents Vila Sassetti, a green paradise with its own view of the sea. Creating a garden is never a pursuit for one person and CG discovers Saint-John Perse, a friend and deeply learned in the art of gardens. Together, they dream Les Enclos. In Sintra, he is accompanied by his secretary who, since 1930, typed out the details of all his life, who secretly loved him, who served and defended him and was ever present through to his death. The handwriting of Mme. Theis is so peculiar that it betrays her, revealing a passion that would otherwise seem to be unfolding into two women…
- By (author) Cristina Castel-Branco
Other Titles in this Series
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
A Collaborative Tapestry in Honour of Shirley Ann Brown / Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown
The Bayeux Tapestry Seen by her Colleagues and Friends / La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis
Similar Books
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Portraying the Individual in the Roman East
Local–Imperial Entanglements in Sculpture, Mosaics, and Paintings (First–Fourth Centuries AD)
Volume 18
Technical Studies of Asian Art
Proceedings of the Seventh Forbes Symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art
Art and Mysticism in Silesia in the Baroque Period
Angelus Silesius, Bernhard Rosa, and Michael Willmann
Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie
The Arts and Archaeology of Funerary Cultures in Islam
Volume 10.0
Die (Ent-)Politisierung der Kunstwissenschaft/(De)Politicising Art Studies
Marxistische Traditionslinien seit 1968/Marxist Traditions since 1968
Volume 27
Gender in Gandharan Art
Representations and Interactions in the Buddhist Context (1st-4th centuries CE)