French rose 1817 - 1824

Pierre-Joseph Redoute

PaperPrint
48 ⨯ 32 cm
€ 1.250

Inter-Antiquariaat Mefferdt & De Jonge

• About the artwork
  FROM ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOKS ABOUT ROSES EVER PUBLISHED "Rosa Gallica Agatha (var. Delphiniana) L’Enfant de France", stipple engraving, partly printed in colour and finished by hand. Made by Langlois after the design by Pierre Joseph Redoute for "Les Roses", printed by Imprimerie Rémond in Paris between 1817-1824. Size (plate): 27 x 21,5 cm (paper: c. 48 x 32,4 cm). Pierre Joseph Redoute (1759 - 1840) was perhaps one of the greatest of all flower artists and was employed by the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte as her botanical artist at her estate of Malmaison outside Paris. "Les Roses" is his most celebrated and perhaps the most reproduced of all flower books. In it Redouté figured almost all the important roses of his day in the French Empire. Included were many of the key ancestors of our present-day roses. The plates in Les Roses have artistic value, botanical and documentary value, both for the species and cultivars still surviving and for those that have disappeared. The plates are magnificently and delicately worked, the subtle colouring of the famous French colour printing, which was applied by a rag-stump and re-inked before every impression was an invention of Redoute's so he claimed. In fact he was awarded a medal for it by Louis XVIII. Price: Euro 1.250,-  
• About the artist

  Redouté is best known for his paintings of flowers in the garden of the castle of Malmaison. He was born in Saint-Hubert, part of the Duchy of Luxembourg at the time, but now located in Belgium. He was the official court artist of Marie Antoinette of Austria, for whom he painted plants from the garden of the Kleine Trianon. He continued to paint during the turbulent days of the French Revolution and the Terror. His assignment was to document gardens that had become national property.

  In the service of the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, Redouté was able to indulge his talents in books with drawings of flowers from all over the world and drawings of the roses in the garden of Malmaison. After Joséphine's death, he went through a difficult period. In 1822 he entered the service of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Three years later he became a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.

  Besides being a painter in the tradition of Flemish and Dutch masters such as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Rachel Ruysch, Jan van Huysum and Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Redoute was also important for science. He made more than 2,100 drawings of 1,800 different species of plants, many of which were unknown at the time.

  Redouté was a student of Gerard van Spaendonck, director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

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