REDOUTé, PIERRE-JOSEPH

(b. St. Hubert, Belgium, 10 July 1759; d. Paris, France, 20 June 1840)

botanical illustration.

Redouté was the son of a modest interior decorator and painter of church pieces, Charles-Joseph Redouti. In 1782 he moved to Paris to find scope for his artistic talent. While sketching flowers for pleasure in the Jardin du Roi, Redouté was discovered by the botanist C. L. L’Héritier de Brutelie, who trained him as a botanical artist and employed him to illustrate his publications. Through L’Héritier, Redouté’s artistic development came under the guidance of Gerardus van Spaendonck (1746–1822), professor of flower painting at the Jardin du Roi. Through the patronage especially of Joséphine Bonaparte and later royal protectors, Redouté was able to illustrate many of the great French botanical works of his period.

Redouté developed for botany the technique of color printing by means of stipple engravings à la poupée, with which he produced some of the finest colored botanical illustrations ever published. The combination of scientific botanical precision and innate artistry made Redouté one of the greatest flower painters. Many of the paintings from his Roses are still reproduced on a large scale. The scientific value of his paintings and books lies especially in the documentation of the original specimens of plants new to science and described in his time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Main works to which Redouté contributed or which he published under his own name are the following (listed chronologically): C. L. L’Heritier de Brutelle, Stirpes novae ant minus cognitae … (Paris, 1785–1805); and Sertum anglicum … (Paris, 1789–1792); A. P. de Candolle, Plantation historia succulentarum (Paris, 1799–1832); R. L. Desfontaines, Flora atlantica (Paris, 1800); E. P. Ventenat, Description des plantes nouvelles et peu contwells, cultivees dans le jardin de J. M. Cels (Paris, 1800); H. L. Duhamel du Monceau, Traite des arbres et arlmstes que Fan cultive en pleine terre en Europe et partictdiennunt en France par Duhamel, 2nd ed., enl., 7 vols. (Paris, 1800–1819); A. Michaux, Histoire des chěnes de l’Amérique (Paris, 1801); A. P. de Candolle, Astragalogia (Paris, 1802); P. J. Redouté, Les liliacees, 8 vols. (Paris, 1802–1808), text by Candolle (I-IV), Delaroche (V-VI), and Raffeneau Delile (VII-VIII); E. P. Ventenat, Jardin de la Malmaison, 2 vols. (Paris, 1803); J. J. Rousseau, La botanique de J. J. Rousseau (Paris, 1805); A. J. G. Bonpland,Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre (Paris, 1813); and P. J. Redouté, Les roses, 3 vols. (Paris, 1817–1824); and Choix des plus belles fleurs (Paris, 1827–1833).

II. Secondary Literature. See F. Leger, Redouté et son temps (Paris, 1945); F. A. Stafleu, “Redouté, peintre de fleurs,” in G. H. M. Lawrence, ed., A Catalogue of Redoutéana (Pittsburgh, 1963), 1–32; and Taxonomic Literature (Utrecht, 1967), 376–380, full information on studies, commentaries, bibliographies, and biographical publications; and Lotte Gunthart, Andre Lawalree, and G timber Buchheim, P, J. Redouté (Pittsburgh, 1972).

Frans A. Stafleu