Known as the
‘Raphael of flowers’, Pierre-Joseph Redoute served five queens and empresses of
France, and is considered by many to be the greatest botanical artist known. Redoute
started his career as an itinerant painter at the age of 13, travelling to the Low
Countries where he was influenced by Flemish still lifes. Ten years later he
moved to Paris to join his brother Antoine-Ferdinand as a set designer at the
Theatre Italien, continuing his botanical studies in his spare time.

 Redoute
became acquainted with the botanists Charles L’Heritier de Brutelle and Rene
Desfontaines who schooled him in the systems of Carl Linneas, and the requirements
of scientific illustration. L’Heritier was instrumental in his introduction to
the court of Versailles and Marie Antoinette, who later appointed him peintre du cabinet de la reine.

In
1786 Redoute travelled to England to execute drawings for L’Hertier’s Sertum
Anglicum working alongside the English artist James Sowerby. During his
visit he met the engraver Francesco Bartolozzi, master of the technique of
stipple engraving. First developed by the engraver to George III William
Ryland, who was hanged for forgery in 1783, stipple engraving was almost
exclusively used in England. The mixed method of etching and engraving allowed
for greater variations in shades and softness produced through dots rather than
lines, and would later become Redoute’s signature technique. On his return to
Paris, Redoute continued providing illustrations for L’Hertier as well as
studying under artist to the king at the Jardin du Roi, Gerard van Spaendorck,
soon surpassing his tutor in terms of scientific and aesthetic skill.

Talented
and resourceful Redoute navigated his way through the tumultuous years of the
French Revolution, producing his first solo work for the botanist Augustin de Candolle’s Plantarum
historia (1799), which was also the first to utilise hand
coloured stipple-engraved plates. In that same year, Redoute with the botanist Etienne
Ventenat also produced a work on the garden of botanist Jacques-Martin
Cels. Ventenat’s brother Louis was naturalist and chaplain to the 1791 expedition
to Australia led by Admiral Bruni Entrecasteaux, and through him Ventenat
became employed by the Empress Josephine to whom he then introduced Redoute. Josephine
had an interest in natural history and experimenting with agricultural improvement, and the vast
greenhouses at Malmaison benefited greatly from her enthusiasm and France’s
explorations. Malmaison
became known for its varieties of cultivated plants particularly roses, her
favourite flower. Redoute produced his first work for Josephine with Vetenet, Le Jardin de la Malmaison (1803-1805),
then again with Vetenet Les Liliacees (1802-1816),
and then with botanist Aime Bonpland, recently returned from five years with
Alexander von Humboldt in the Americas, Description des plantes rares
cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre (1812-17).

After
Josephine’s death in 1814, Redoute continued to visit the gardens of Malmaisson
to focus on its roses, as well as those found in other grand gardens of France.
His efforts culminated in his most famous work
Les Roses in association with botanist Claude Thory, and issued in parts
from 1817-24. Redoute struggled with funding for Les Roses having lost
his most important patron, and throughout its production he was required to
take on other work. His Album de
Redoute 1824, a selection from Les Liliacees and Les Roses dedicated to the Duchesse de
Berry the daughter in law of Charles X, did however bring him recognition.
Charles X purchased the original water colours of Les Roses, and Redoute issued a quarto edition 1824-6. Soon Redoute
would be under royal patronage, and again appointed pientre du cabinet de la reine. His love for his work undiminished,
he was still painting when he died unexpectedly at eighty.

In Les Roses, Redoute exceled himself in his
accuracy and subtle detailing, capturing the fresh, delicate vibrancy of the live plants from which he worked
(rather than specimens), and his genuine
understanding of the engraving technique itself. His
precise, luminous renderings remain timeless, as fresh and lively as when he
first painted them, making Les Roses the
ultimate expression of one of the most gifted artists known to the genre.