#selected and introduced by Eva Mannering in 1954

[empirearchives]

I got a book with Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s illustrations of the roses from Josephine’s garden. The illustrations are from his 1817-1824 publications, Les Roses. Josephine Bonaparte had around 250 different types of roses in her garden at Malmaison, many of which no longer exist, but are the forerunners to roses which are being grown in gardens today.

With Napoleon and Josephine’s patronage, Redouté produced illustrations for Jardin de la Malmaison, Les Liliacées, Description des Plantes rares cultivées à Malmaison, and Les Roses. Eva Mannering describes Redouté’s life’s work as catching and preserving “the essence of bygone Spring and Summer days in his meticulous flower paintings.”

Redouté died in 1840. His epitaph reads:

O peintre aimé de Flore et du riant Empire / tu nous quittes le jour où le printemps expire.

Translation:

O painter loved by Flora and the smiling Empire / you leave us the day spring expires.