A quiet word from the List Mistress - Redoute Rose

Pierre-Joseph REDOUTE  (1759-1840), Weeping Rose, watercolour and pencil on parchment, mounted on paper.  Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide, Haywood Bequest

 You may not know his name, but chances are you have seen his work as it is now mass produced and appears on decorator items around the world.  It is to be seen on millions of greeting cards,  decorates your daily tea or coffee cup, or hangs as a print or poster on your walls - you might even use these images as your computer screen saver. 

I am talking about the exquisitely drawn images of old roses that are the work of the Belgian born artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté, (1759-1840).  Most people consider him a French artist but he was actually born into a family of painters and decorators who lived in a little village in the forest of the Belgian Ardennes.  Pierre-Joseph’s unique artistic talents took him to the very height of the 19^th century French court where he became attached to the circle that surrounded the Empress Josephine and the court of Emperor Napoleon.  Over a period of fifty years he became one of  the world’s greatest botanical artists and although he is now more commonly known as the ‘man who painted roses’ he actually painted all types flowers and his meticulous studies of primula, iris and lilies are all just as detailed and beautiful as his more familiar ‘old’ roses. 

Redouté also produced some of the earliest known botanical studies of the then strange, and newly discovered, Australian flora that Empress Josephine grew in her extensive gardens at Malmaison on the  outskirts of Paris in the early 1800s and some of these exotic antipodean plants were actually grown in France many years before they appeared in English gardens.  During his lifetime, Redouté’s drawings were published as hand-coloured engravings in expensive, limited edition publications and it was not until the later years of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries that his work became more widely available to the general population as cheaper, mass produced prints.

Carrick Hill has a small but significant collection of French paintings that includes this delicate original watercolour by Redouté.  It was acquired by Lady Ursula Hayward and as far as we know, is the only original work by this artist in an Australian collection.  Little is known about this painting except that it was painted for Redoute's friend, the French novelist and playwright, Honoré de Balzac.

The rose, still with a droplet of early morning dew on its petals is a 'cabbage' or Centifolia rose called Grand Choux Hollandais, originally grown, as the name suggests, in Holland.  The accompanying blue-violet auricular primula is equally beautiful and, at that time was just as exotic and desirable a plant to grow to demonstrate wealth and privilege.   

References:  The Man Who Painted by Roses: the story of Pierre-Joseph Redouté by Antonia Ridge,  pub., Faber & Faber Limited, London, 1974.

Napoleon, the Empress and the Artist: the story of Napoleon, Josephine’s garden at Malmaison, Redouté & the Australian Plants by Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, pub., Kangaroo Press, Australia, 1999