Redoute Stipple Engraving, Les Liliacées

REDOUTE, Pierre-Joseph (1759-1840).
Tulipa Suaveoleons, Plate 111.
Stipple engraving with original hand color from Les Liliacées.
Paris, 1802-1816.
21” x 14” sheet, 26” x 18 ½” framed.
Les Liliacées represents the culmination of Redouté’s art in many ways: it is his largest single work; it depicts specimens of the liliacae family, often ser ving as the first known depictions of these specimens; finally, it contains Redouté’s most extensive use of stipple-engraving, a technique which he pioneered in France. Redouté published Les Liliaceés under his own name, but the work owes much to the patronage of Empress Josephine Buonaparte. The pair’s association began in 1798, when Redouté painted watercolors for the Empress’s bedroom at Malmaison and contributed to the record of the plants in the extensive gardens found there, which were later published in Ventenat’s Jardin de la Malmaison and Bonpland’s Description des Plantes Rares Cultivées à Malmaison et à Navarre. In each illustration, the flowers are classical “portraits”, defined by lack of backgrounds or settings. The regal simplicity of the compositions allows the viewer to focus without distraction on the beauty and delicate complexity of the plants themselves.