Redouté, Pierre Joseph

Choix des plus belles fleurs et des plus belles fruits.  Paris: Panckoucke, [1833?]



4to (12  1/4  x 9 in.; 311 x 228 mm).  144 fine stipple-engraved plates printed in colors and finished by hand, after Redouté, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy, and Victor; occasional light spotting, generally not affecting images.  Half brown morocco, spine gilt in six compartments, green buckram covers, edges gilt, some wear and rubbing, front free endpaper detached.

Acquired by the MHS in 1932

Dunthorne 235; Hunt, Redoutéana 20; Great Flower Books  p. 25; Nissen, BBI 1591; Pritzel 7456; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 8750

4to (12 1/4 x 9 in.; 311 x 228 mm). 144 fine stipple-engraved plates printed in colors and finished by hand, after Redouté, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy, and Victor; occasional light spotting, generally not affecting images. Half brown morocco, spine gilt in six compartments, green buckram covers, edges gilt, some wear and rubbing, front free endpaper detached.
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The most sumptuous and accomplished of Redouté's later productions.  The Choix des plus belles fleures, a selection of the artist's finest plates of flowers and fruits, was issued originally in 36 parts between May 1827 and June 1833.  Another edition is dated 1829 and there are undated editions of 1833 and later.  Bound in after the plates is the Table alphabétique by D. M. Guillemin, giving the correct botanical names of the plants and brief notes on the their history and culture.

While exhibiting his artistic abilities to the full, Choix des plus belles fleurs shows the license that came to the fore at the end of Redouté's career as he had to cater to the tastes of the boudoir and drawing room.  In the preface for the first edition of this work, he wrote, "The art of painting flowers is certainly not a luxury and the adornment which luxury derives from it cannot detract from the correct opinion that one must have of its utility.  Natural history could not exist if deprived from its help, certainly in our age."

The splendid flower plates include several bouquet arrangements and five of Redouté's six camellia plates.  Dunthorne describes the sixteen fruit plates as "among the most beautiful of all fruit prints.  Plates of greengages, plums, peaches, ladyfinger grapes, raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears and apricots are portrayed so perfectly in the delicacy of the stippled modelling that an impression of a third dimension is created."