# Bassin de Neptune, Versailles

- By: Carroll Beckwith (born Hannibal, MO 1852-died New York City 1917)
- Date: 1913
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 24 x 20 in. (60.9 x 50.8 cm.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Smithsonian Institution
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=1707)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/14f5160c45555a6c46ce85038bfc19bc.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

James Carroll Beckwith painted this scene of the Neptune Fountain during one of several trips he made to Versailles. There was a movement at the time to restore the grandeur of the French palace, which may have inspired Beckwith to paint scenes of the gardens there. (Franchi and Weber, Intimate Revelations: The Art of Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917), 1999) In this painting, Beckwith captured the splendor of Versailles at the height of midsummer in the watery reflection of the trees and green knolls, and the yellow light that dances on the surface of the classical statues.