Chateau de Vincennes cast iron fireback - firebacks

Description

This fireback presents a view of the castle in Vincennes as shown in the pictures of the Castle today. The park was landscaped in the English landscape style in the 19th century. In 1860 Napoleon III, having employed Viollet-le-Duc to restore the keep and the chapel, gave the Bois de Vincennes (9.95 km² in extent) and its château to Paris as a public park. The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis. Like other more famous châteaux it had its origins in a hunting lodge, set up for Louis VII about 1150 in the forest of Vincennes. Only traces remain of the earlier castle and the substantial remains date from the 14th century. The castle forms a rectangle measuring more than a kilometer in length (330 x 175m), with six towers and three gates, each originally 42 meters high. The castle is surrounded by a deep stone lined moat. The keep, 52m high, and its enceinte occupy the western side of the fortress and are separated from the rest of the castle by the moat. The towers of the "grande enceinte" now stand only to the height of the walls, having been demolished in the 1800s, save the Tour du Village on the north side of the enclosure. The south end of the castle contains the buildings of Le Vau.