The Belvedere Fountain, Vienna · Travel Poster

Each poster comes with a letter home and Ella writes about the place, its hidden history, and the detail that never makes it into the guide books.

Prince Eugene of Savoy built the Belvedere as a summer retreat, and had its gardens laid out by Dominique Girard, who trained at Versailles. The Grand Cascade running between the two palaces isn't just decoration, it's two basins joined by five tiers of falling water, watched over by Tritons and a sculpture of Hercules wrestling the Nemean Lion, part of a whole mythological programme designed to quietly compare the Prince to Apollo. He was just as serious, by the way, about his orange trees, and had an entire Orangery built next door purely to keep them warm through the Viennese winter.

This poster is an original illustration in watercolour and ink, painted for the Ella's Adventures travel poster series. Part of a series of Vienna Travel art, available as Travel Posters (with a history letter) and matching postcards.

No frame included.