Pierre-Joseph Redoute, 1750-1840

Vase of flowers, oil painting

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (10 July 1759 in Saint-Hubert, Belgium – 19 June 1840 in Paris), was a Belgian painter and botanist, known for his watercolours of roses, lilies and other flowers at Malmaison. He was nicknamed “The Raphael of flowers”.

He was an official court artist of Queen Marie Antoinette, and he continued painting through the French Revolution and Reign of Terror. Redouté survived the turbulent political upheaval to gain international recognition for his precise renderings of plants, which remain as fresh in the early 21st century as when first painted. Many of Redouté’s  works  have disappeared in the fire of the Louvre in 1871 and his oil paintings are rare.  

The extraordinary impression of truth that emerges from his work is rather the fruit of scientific research of a lifetime, that of a man who respects nature.