Nicolas Robert | Florilegium, 15 very fine watercolours of flowers on vellum, 1643

Nicolas Robert

Florilegium. [Lyon, 1643]

Small folio (275 x 185mm.), 15 watercolour drawings of flowers on vellum including tulips, daffodils, carnations, lilies, irises, crown imperials, peonies, love-in-a-mist, anemones, roses and African marigolds, contemporary brown morocco gilt, lettered on covers with owner's and artist's names: "M.R. Desbois Conselier et Elu en l'election du Maconois", "Nicolas Robertus fecit Lugduni Anno 1643", black morocco box, some light spotting and a little marginal soiling, minor staining to covers, bumped at edges, some wear to joints

Nicolas Robert (1614-1685) was one of the most outstanding French botanical artists of the seventeenth century. He was commissioned by Louis XIII's brother Gaston d'Orléans to keep a pictorial record of the plants and animals in his gardens at Blois. Afterwards he was chosen as the chief illustrator for the Histoire des Plantes, a project by the newly founded Académie Royale des Sciences. Most of his drawings are preserved in the Jardin des Plantes museum in Paris. In 1664 he was appointed as "peintre ordinaire de Sa Majesté pur la miniature" (Painter of Miniatures) to Louis XIV. The British Museum possesses two volumes of drawings attributed to him and there are other drawings in the Broughton Collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Tulipmania refers to a period during the Dutch Golden Age where prices and demand for tulip bulbs reached extraordinary levels. The exponential obsession with tulips commenced in 1634 and is known as the first recorded economic speculative bubble in history. Tulips first arrived in Europe from the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. They were prized for their brightly coloured petals and their associations with wealth and exoticism. Tulips with multi-hued petals were held in the greatest esteem. The delicately rendered tulips on vellum reflect the enamourment with rare and beautiful flowers and Robert was commissioned by wealthy patrons for several of these florilegiums where the ephemeral beauty of the tulip was preserved forever on vellum.

As well as tulips, the florilegium features a cornucopia of desirable and rare flowers, namely daffodils, carnations, lilies, irises, crown imperials, peonies, love-in-a-mist, anemones, roses and African marigolds. Indeed, florilegium refers to the Latin words flos and legere, meaning ‘a gathering of flowers’. The popularity of florilegiums and flower paintings reached unprecedented heights during the mid seventeenth century in Europe, where wealthy patrons would pay exceedingly high prices in order to employ the greatest flower painters of the day.

Notwithstanding the exquisite contents of this small folio, the binding truly makes it a treasure. Remarkably, it exhibits the owner’s name, and their governing position in the area of Macon; "M.R. Desbois Conselier et Elu en l'election du Maconois" is tooled above a delicate floral wreath in gilt. The Desbois family were a notable family in Macon, with Pierre Desbois, the owner of the present work, being elected in 1622. He then became “annobli par une charge de secrétaire du roi” in 1645.

The rear cover exceptionally attributes the watercolours to Nicolas Robert himself, and states they were executed in Lyon in 1643, when Robert was twenty nine years old. Two years prior to this, Robert had worked on the first major project of his life which cemented his fame, the Guirlande de Julie, a collection of gouache flowers on vellum for Charles Montausier, Duke of Sainte-Maure.

LITERATURE:
Blunt, p. 110

PROVENANCE:
Ownership illustrated on binding, "M.R. Desbois Conselier et Elu en l'election du Maconois".

Exhibited 'The Glory of the Garden', A Loan Exhibition in Association with The Royal Horticultural Society, 2 January to 28 January 1987, Lot 68

ESTIMATE: £150,000-200,000