Beschreibung:

Pierre Joseph REDOUTE (1759-1840). Choix des Plus Belles Fleurs Prises dans Différentes Familles du Règne Végétal Text by D.-M. Guillemin. Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1827 [-1833]. Large 4° (335 x 244 mm.) Title-page, advertisement and 9 leaves of text (paginated 1-17 and final blanc), 144 fine stipple-engraved plates before numbers, printed in colours and finished by hand, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy, and Victor, after Redouté. (Some light browning and spotting to a few plates, small tear to Oreilles d'Ours not affecting the image, Poids de senteur with stain outside the image.) Contemporary green half-calf, flat spine, (slightly worn, back cover crudely restored). THE FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE GREAT FLOWER BOOKS BY REDOUTES. The Choix , the last of three major work published by Redouté, was issued in 36 fascicules between May 1827 and June 1833 (the text by Guillemin is dated 1833), in both quarto and folio format, the latter being the so-called grand papier version. The Hunt Redoutéana catalogue notes that the folio issue was restricted to a small number of copies only and it is presumed that there were actually no more than 5 copies printed. The work is divided into four sections, Fruits , Roses , Bouquets , and Fleurs , with sixteen, sixteen, nine, and 103 plates respectively. Unlike later editions, this first edition has no section titles, and the plates are not presented in any particular order. Pierre-Joseph Redouté is the most celebrated and popular of all flower painters and his work is the culmination of a tradition of botanical illustration produced under royal patronage which dated back to the Renaissance. Redouté, the most eminent pupil of Gérard van Spaendonck, produced a large number of drawings on vellum, 519 of which are now in the famous collection of Vélins du Roi , housed in the Museum d'histoire naturelle in Paris. His ability of depicting flowers gained him the nickname "Raphael des Fleurs". The flowers, fruits and bouquets included in the Choix are characteristic of Redouté at his most assured, combining the best of his artistic background and his skill as an observer of nature: "Éclairé par l'expérience, encouragé par les souffrages les plus flatteurs des naturalistes et des peintres de mon pays et des contrées les plus éloignées; c'est en me livrant aux travaux botaniques les plus étendus, c'est en étudiant sans cesse la nature dans la constance et dans la variété des formes et de ses couleurs, que je crois être parvenu à réussir sous le triple rapport d'exactitude, de la composition et du coloris, dont la réunion peut seule porter à perfection l'iconogrpahie végétale" (Redouté, writing in the preface to the present work). Redouté was closely linked to the Panckoucke publishing family through one of his most gifted pupils, Anne-Ernestine Panckoucke who had married C.L.F. Panckoucke, the third son of the publisher of Diderot and d'Alembert's epochal work, the Encyclopédie . The noted French botanist D.-M. Guillemin wrote the Table Alphabétique et Explicative des plantes , and the combination of a rigorous alphabetical listing of species, Panckoucke's printing, and Redouté's extraordinarily fine paltes, resulted in a publishing and botanical sensation. There were two further editions published in 1829 and 1833, and some of the plates were separaretly issued in a portfolio with a preface by Colette. Hunt Redoutéana 21; Nissen BBI 1591; Pritzel 7456; Dunthorne 235; Stafleu & Cowan 8750; Sitwell Great Flower Books 1700-1900 p. 129.