The Most Beautiful Flowers

The finest work of the "Raphael of flowers". The tradition of botanical illustration reaches back to the Renaissance. It reflected a desire to document nature in all its detail, variety and splendour, and demanded the most precise skill of an artist.
French flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) devoted himself exclusively to the botanical arts, capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as stipple engravings. A darling of Parisian high society, he was dubbed the Raphael of flowers, with a network of élite patrons including Napoleon's Josephine.