Redoute Postcard Book: A Book of 20 Postcards

Padre Publishers, 1994. Soft cover. Folio, with two fold-out pages with 8 postcards per page and 4 postcards on the back cover. Very good/ NO dust jacket. Pictorial soft covers have light bumping to edges and corners. Light overall rubbing and faint scratching and soiling to back cover postcards. Binding tight (staple bound). Interior postcards are very clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Lovely artwork. [Excerpts from inside of front cover] Considered to be one of the greatest botanical artists to ever live, P.J. Redoute has often been compared to the great American illustrator of birds and mammals, John James Audubon. He was born in 1759 in the Belgian Ardennes and came from a long line of journeyman painters. At a very young age he set out to become a painter himself. Although not much is known about this time period in his life, many have speculated that he spent his time working just as his father and older brother had by painting houses and commissioned portraits. While spending time in France with his older brother painting stage scenery for the theater, he visited the Jardin du Roi, where he studied and sketched still life. He gradually found his calling of the great Netherlands tradition of flower painting. During his first undertaking of flower painting, Redoute attracted the attention of Charles Louis L'Hertier de Brutelie, a wealthy botanist who was producing a series of books on current plant cultivation. Redoute happened to fall into the right place at the right time because L'Hertier took him under his wing and began instructing Redoute on the science of plants and flowers. Soon Redoute was able to make detailed drawings that where pleasing and scientifically correct. In the following years Redoute prospered…With the upcoming French Revolution, the old regime of painters would soon be swept away. But Redoute survived and prospered… Redoute became an artist on the staff of the new Museum d'Histoire Naturelie… In 1798 Redoute turned his attention to producing his first book produced entirely of his own work. Plantarum Succulentarum Historia, contained renderings of succulent plants with text provided by a young Swiss botanist. It became the first and only book Redoute would create with his own work. Later that same year Redoute entered the service of Josephine Bonaparte. During his 16 years with Josephine he completed three more installments and accomplished what many feel to be his greatest work ever. And because of the high level of artistic ability and scientific accuracy he would never reach such perfection again. During the next few years Redoute continued producing magnificent work, including Les Lilacees, which contained more than 400 prints of the lilac family and similar families. June 20, 1840 Redoute was stricken ill and died in his home while working on his final painting, a lily given to him by his daughter.