1625 Francis Bacon, (1561-1626) on Garden Fountains for Bathing & Ornament

Francis Bacon, (1561-1626), English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, & author, wrote of gardens in his 1625 Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall in the appropriately titled essay Of Gardens. Bacon had inherited his father's estate at Gorhambury in Hertfordshire in 1602. He gardened there & his notes outlining a scheme to make a four-acre water garden still exist in the British Museum. His essay on gardens coincided with the new North American settlements along the Atlantic coast.  While we have no paintings of 17C gardens in the British American colonies, we do have portraits of garden fountains from the period.

Frans Pourbus the younger (1569–1622) Portrait of Francis Bacon 1617

Francis Bacon, (1561-1626):
God Almighty first planted a Garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works: and a man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection.

1534 Lucas The Elder Cranach (1472-1553)  The Nymph of the Fountain

Fountains
For Fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment; but Pools mar all, and make the Garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs. Fountains I intend to be of two natures; the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water: the other a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud.

Fountains as Ornaments
For the first, the ornaments of images, gilt or of marble, which are in use, do well: but the main matter is so to convey the water, as it never stay, either in the bowls or in the cistern: that the water be never by rest discoloured, green, or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness or putrefaction; besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the hand: also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it doth well.

Fountains as Bathing Pools
As for the other kind of Fountain, which we may call a bathing-pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble ourselves: as, that the bottom be finely paved, and with images; the sides likewise; and withal embellished with coloured glass, and such things of lustre; encompassed also with fine rails of low statues: but the main point is the same which we mentioned in the former kind of Fountain; which is, that the water be in perpetual motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by fair spouts, and then discharged away underground, by some equality of bores, that it stay little; and for fine devices, of arching water without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers, drinking-glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to look on, but nothing to health and sweetness.

1661 Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) A Mother and her two Children by a Fountain

Barend van Kalraet (Dutch artist, 1649-1737) Lady by a Fountain with a Parrott

Barent Graat (Dutch artist, 1628-1709) Portrait of a Girl Cleaning Cherries in a Fountain

Brabant school, the end of the 17C. Three year old girl at a fountain.

Style of Jacob Toorenvliet, (Dutch artist 1635-41-1719) A Woman Selling Herring to a Lady A Fountain Beyond

Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693)  A Maid Washing Carrots at a Fountain with Two Gardeners at Work

 Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Young Girl at Fountain

Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) A Lady by a Fountain with a Dog and a Child

1671 Pieter Nason (Dutch artist, c 1612-1688-90) Unidentified Lady with Fountains in a Garden Beyond

Style of Pieter Nason (Dutch artist, c 1612-1688-90) Portrait of Anna Catharina van Heemskerck (1676-1723) when young, seated by a fountain on a draped terrace

1676 Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Family Portrait in front of a Fountain