Ursula Buchan

Gather ye roses

Can there be many spare bedrooms in the country that do not have at least one, and probably four, prints of Redouté rose engravings hanging on the walls? I know ours does.

issue 20 November 2010

Can there be many spare bedrooms in the country that do not have at least one, and probably four, prints of Redouté rose engravings hanging on the walls? I know ours does.

Can there be many spare bedrooms in the country that do not have at least one, and probably four, prints of Redouté rose engravings hanging on the walls? I know ours does. People who do not think they know the name of a single botanical artist will have heard of Pierre-Joseph Redouté, the 19th-century Belgian-born artist who did so much to instil the French (and later the English) with an enduring love for the rose.

He did this by painting roses most faithfully and sensitively, in watercolour on vellum. These paintings were then engraved, using the copper-plate technique called ‘stipple engraving’, for inclusion in the three volumes of Les Roses, which were published between 1817 and 1824.

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