PIERRE-JOSEPH REDOUTÉ | SAGITTARIA OVATA (SAGITTAIRE À FEUILLES OVALES)

Acquired from the artist by Empress Josephine;

thence by descent to Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg, Bavaria;

thence by descent until sold, ("Sale of the Library of Eugène de Beauharnais"), Zurich, Braus-Riggenbach and Ulrico Hoepli, 23 May 1935, lot 82;

Erhard Weyhe, New York;

sale (''Pierre-Joseph Redouté's Liliacées"), New York, Sotheby's, 20 November 1985, lot 411, to W. Graham Arader, New York

The present work comes from Pierre-Joseph Redouté's largest and most ambitious work, Les Liliacées, which was conceived as a meticulous exercise to render accurately the different members of the Liliaceae family, as well as to produce aesthetically beautiful images. Highly finished drawings like this were the basis from which engraved plates were made, to be hand coloured and assembled into volumes. The complete work was composed of 486 plates, published in 80 separate installments between 1802 and 1816.

Empress Josephine had a passion for flowers and spent much time and money in creating gardens at Malmaison, Saint-Cloud, Versailles and Sèvres. Being employed by the Empress, Redouté had open access to these gardens. While this series was not directly commissioned by her, without her patronage the work surely would never have come to fruition. Knowing that a work such as Les Liliacées would greatly please his patron, Redouté presented his original drawings in a bound volume to the Empress.