Redoute Watercolor for Les Liliacees, plate 365: Iris

REDOUTE, Pierre-Joseph (1759-1840).
Watercolor for plate 365: Iris squalens.
Watercolor and graphite on vellum.
Prepared for Les Liliacées ca. 1802-1816.Completed: ca. 1802-1816.Signed lower left: "P. J. Redoute".
18 1/2" x 13 3/4" sheet; 31 1/2" x 27 3/4" frame.With accompanying stipple engraving by Redoute (20 ½” x 13 ¾” sheet, 31” x 24” framed).
Exhibition: American Philosophical Society, Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790-1830: March 25, 2011 - January 1, 2012.

Country of Origin: In cultivation and naturalized in several countries of southern central Europe, e.g. in Switzerland (Engadin), north Italy (South Tyrol) and Hungary.Les Liliacee's represents the culmination of Redoute'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 Redouts's most extensive use of stipple-engraving, a technique which he pioneered in France. Redoutte published Les Liliacee's under his own name, but the work owes much to the patronage of Empress Josephine Buonaparte. The paris association began in 1798, when Redoute painted watercolors for the Empresse's bedroom at Malmaison and contributed to the record of the plants in the extensive gardens found there, which were later published in Ventenata's Jardin de la Malmaison and Bonplande's Description des Plantes Rares Cultivees 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.