These wonderful rare hand coloured copper engravings hung in my home for many years.
Now too wide to fit into my apartment, I’m selling.
1830 H.77cm W.175cm
Photography by Russell Winnell Photography
Pierre-Joseph Redouté, (10 July 1759 – 19 June 1840), was a painter and botanist from Belgium, known for his watercolours of roses, lilies and other flowers at the Château de Malmaison,
many of which were published as large, coloured stipple engravings.
He was nicknamed “the Raphael of flowers” and has been called the greatest botanical illustrator of all time.
In 1786, Redouté began to work at the National Museum of Natural History cataloguing the collections of flora and fauna and participating in botanical expeditions.
In 1787, he left France to study plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew near London, returning the following year. In 1792 he was employed by the French Academy of Sciences.
In 1798, Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, became his patron and, some years later, he became her official artist. In 1809,
Redouté taught painting to Princess Adélaïde of Orléans.