Paris, Imprimerie de Remond, n.d. [but circa 1824].
61 plates finished by hand. The Album consists of a superb series of prints by Pierre Joseph Redouté, possibly the greatest of all flower artists who was employed by the Empress Josephine, wife of the Emperor Napoleon, as official court artist at her Malmaison estate outside Paris. Redouté's, Les Roses, published between 1817 and 1824, is renowned for its artistic, botanical and documentary value, both for the species and cultivars still surviving and for those that have disappeared. The plates themselves are magnificently and delicately worked.
The Album, published on completion of the first edition of Les Roses, features some of the finest plates from the whole work and these are augmented by a selection from Les Liliaces, and the Jardin de la Malmaison, Redouté's other masterpieces. Normally the Album is found with up to 30 plates and the present example must rank amongst the most complete known. Fine Flower Books states that complete copies are found with varying numbers of plates and the plates themselves are not always the same.
Folio (55 x 36 cm.), title printed in gold within stipple-engraved floral wreath printed in colours and finished by hand, 61 stipple-engraved plates printed in colours and finished by hand, after Redoute by Langlois, Bessin, de Gouy, Couten, Tassaert, Allais, and Chaponnieu, comprising 42 plates of roses and 19 of lilies and other flowers, contemporary hal green straight-grain morocco gilt over green boards, lightly rubbed, a fine copy.
Lawrence (Catalogue Redoutéana, Hunt Botanical Library 1963), 38 (24-30 plates); Fiine Flower Books, (1990), p. 128 (24-30 plates); Nissen BBI, 1589, (29 plates).
The Album, published on completion of the first edition of Les Roses, features some of the finest plates from the whole work and these are augmented by a selection from Les Liliaces, and the Jardin de la Malmaison, Redouté's other masterpieces. Normally the Album is found with up to 30 plates and the present example must rank amongst the most complete known. Fine Flower Books states that complete copies are found with varying numbers of plates and the plates themselves are not always the same.
Folio (55 x 36 cm.), title printed in gold within stipple-engraved floral wreath printed in colours and finished by hand, 61 stipple-engraved plates printed in colours and finished by hand, after Redoute by Langlois, Bessin, de Gouy, Couten, Tassaert, Allais, and Chaponnieu, comprising 42 plates of roses and 19 of lilies and other flowers, contemporary hal green straight-grain morocco gilt over green boards, lightly rubbed, a fine copy.
Lawrence (Catalogue Redoutéana, Hunt Botanical Library 1963), 38 (24-30 plates); Fiine Flower Books, (1990), p. 128 (24-30 plates); Nissen BBI, 1589, (29 plates).
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