Redouté, Pierre Joseph

Choix des plus belles fleurs. Paris: [C.L.F. Pankcoucke for] Ernest Pankcoucke, [1833 or later]

1 volume bound in 2 (with duplicate titles and text), folio (13 7/8 x 10 in.; 353 x 254 mm). 144 stipple-engraved plates, printed in colors and finished by hand, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy and Victor, after drawings by Redouté, each titled in French with a Latin binomial, 11 of which are before numbers which have mostly been supplied in pencil; very scattered marginal spots without affecting images. Contemporary salmon moiré silk with gold-stamped presentation "Dedié à Madame Edmée Tattet," yellow endpapers; rebacked with original spine laid down, a few small stains, edges worn. Half red morocco drop box.

Edmée Tattet (presentation) — P. Brunet (20th c. booklabel)

Dunthorne 235; Great Flower Books p. 129; Nissen BBI 1591; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 8750; cf. Hunt, Redoutéana 21

Later folio edition, a clean copy of a magnificent work in an attractive contemporary presentation binding. The Choix de plus belles fleurs, a selection of Redouté's finest plates of flowers and fruits were issued in 36 parts between 1827 and 1833, the last of which contains the Table alphabétique by D. M. Guillemin giving the correct botanical names of the plants and brief notes on their history and culture. A restricted number of copies was issued in folio as here.

The splendid flower plates include several bouquet arrangements and five of Redouté's six camellia plates. Dunthorne describes the 16 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 stipple modelling that an impression of a third dimension is created."