The Bosquet de la Colonnade is one of the most unusual structures in the gardens — a circular peristyle of 32 marble arches and columns, built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1686, forming an open-air circular room among the trees. At the centre stands Girardon's Rape of Persephone, a marble sculpture group of startling quality.
The colonnade uses three types of marble — Languedoc red, Dinan blue-grey, and white Carrara — in alternating columns, with the arches springing from pink Languedoc marble pilasters. Each of the 32 arches has a mascaron (a carved face) at its keystone, and each span has a small basin where water once flowed. The effect is of a room that has no walls but has every other feature of architecture: columns, vaulting, floor, and a focused centre.
The bosquet gardens were closed room by room to the public between the 18th and 20th centuries and have been progressively restored. Many are now open, and exploring them — each one different, each hidden in its grove of hornbeams — is one of the pleasures of the Versailles gardens for those who stay past the first few hours.