Redouté was botanical painter to Marie-Antoinette and then to Joséphine Bonaparte, which tells you most of what you need to know: he survived a revolution because his flowers were that good. Les Roses, published between 1817 and 1824, remains the most reproduced botanical work ever made.
His technique was stipple engraving printed in colour and finished by hand, which produces the soft, almost powdery gradients you see in the petals. Nothing since has quite matched it.
A Redouté rose is the safest bet in the shop for a bedroom, a dressing room or a bathroom — muted, elegant, and hard to tire of. Three roses in a row, matted with a generous white border, is the arrangement that flatters them most.
See our vintage botanical prints and Johann Walter's flower plates.
