Beauty and Garden Design: Marie de Brimeu

‘I remember seeing a parrot at the late Marie de Brimeu's house before she left Holland which was unequalled in the colours, variety and elegance of its feathers’, Clusius wrote. Almost all of the feathers covering its body were reddish, including its tail, which was partly red and partly blue. The feathers on the back and the wings were yellow, red and green, intermingled with blue. It had a white ring around the eyes marked out by wavy black lines. Clusius could not recall ever having seen a description of such a species. This bird was so fond of Anna de Hyllen, a noblewoman and relative of Marie de Brimeu, ‘that it followed her wherever she went through her room and could not see her touching any piece of clothing without giving it a nip, so jealous was it’.

Princess Marie de Brimeu was not only the owner of this rare and beautiful parrot but also an enthusiastic grower of tulips and other rare flowers and shrubs. In the course of her life she created several superb gardens in the Southern and Northern Netherlands, and she was in touch with a number of plant lovers and gardeners in this part of the world. Her letters show her to have been not only an intelligent and resolute, sometimes imperious, melancholy and probably quite headstrong woman, but also a cultured one who wrote a beautiful and elegant French.