Choix des plus belles fleurs prises dans différentes familles du règne végétal et de quelques branches des plus beaux fruits groupées quelquefois, et souvent animées par des insectes et des papillons gravées, imprimées en couleur et retouchées au pinceau avec un soin qui doit répondre de leur perfection dédié a LL. AA. RR. les Princesses Louise et Marie d’Orléans par P. J. Redouté Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. . .
THE GOLDEN COPY
Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke for the author, C.L.F. Panckoucke, Bossange père, Treuttel & Wurtz, Dufars and Arthus-Bertrand; 1827[–1833]. First edition.
Quarto (13 1/16” x 9 11/16”, 332mm x 246mm): binder’s blank, π2 14 24(24+χ1), binder’s blank [$1 signed]. 11 leaves, pp. [4] (title, blank, 2pp. preface), 1-3 4-17, blank. With 144 stipple-engraved plates color-printed à la poupée and finished by hand.
Bound in contemporary half dark red sheep over brown marbled boards. On the spine, four raised bands. Author and title gilt to the second panel. Marbled end-papers.
Rubbed, with wear and some chips to the extremities. Foxing to the first two leaves of text (at the turn-ins, principally), and the odd tanned plate, with scattered light foxing. Tissue-guards throughout, with some tanning and foxing. Altogether quite clean.
Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) — the “Raphael of flowers” — floated above the political changes in France. He went from the patronage of Marie Antoinette — made desinatteur du Cabinet de la Reine in 1788 —to “Citoyen Chaptal,” back to the patronage of the Empress Josephine and on through the Restoration (the present work is dedicated to the two eldest daughters of Louis-Philippe I, the future Queen of Belgium and Duchess of Württemberg); doubtless had he lived into the Second Republic he would have found great favor. He haunted the gardens first of the Petit Trianon and then superintended those at the château of Malmaison in Rueil (just south of Paris), which Josephine (whose given name was Marie-Josèphe-Rose) had bought. Provided with the raw materials by these women, Redouté set about illustrating.
After the great projects of the Liliacées (1802–1816) and the Roses (1817–1824), Redouté set about choosing the most beautiful of his botanical portraits, including several fruits and bouquets, into a sort of greatest-hits album: the Choix des plus belles fleurs (Selection of the most beautiful flowers). Redouté and his collaborators had mastered the art of stipple-engraving à la poupée: copperplate-printing in which the individual colors are applied directly to the plate using a small cloth bundle (a poupée is a rag-doll) — and then finished by hand. (At its best, there is no better way for an artist to ensure the accurate dissemination of his work, supervising coloration even before presswork.)
The volume was purchased at the Sotheby’s New York sale of John Golden (22 November 2022, lot 42), “Book Illustration in the Age of Scientific Discovery.” Mr. Golden, long a client of Arader’s, has through his life worked in the field of printing. His collection, amassed over forty years, contains examples of finely printed works of natural history.
Dunthorne 235; Hunt, Redoutéana 21; Nissen, BBI 1591; Sitwell, Great Flower Books p. 72; Stafleu-Cowan 8750.
Item #JLR0664
Price: $190,000