Redouté, Pierre-Joseph | "But would a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?"

Redouté, Pierre-Joseph

Choix des plus belles fleurs. Paris: Chez l'auteur, Imprimerie de C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1827 [–1833]

4to (331 x 246). Title-page, advertisement, and 9 leaves of text, 144 stipple-engraved plates before numbers, printed in colors and finished by hand, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy, and Victor, after Redouté, tissue guards; relatively light browning and spotting, one or two short closed marginal tears. Contemporary dark maroon morocco-backed marbled-paper boards, spine in five compartments, gilt in four and lettered in one; extremities lightly rubbed with one or two chips.

First edition of one of the greatest flower books every produced. 

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.” 

A lovely copy of an iconic botanical work. 

REFERENCE:

Dunthorne 235; Great Flower Books 72; Hunt Redoutéana 21; Nissen BBI, 1591; Stafleu TL2, 8750

PROVENANCE:

Christie’s London, 17 March 1999, lot 84 (undesignated consignor)