Pierre-Joseph Redoute 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. Redoute 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.

Paris was the cultural and scientific centre of Europe during an outstanding period in botanical illustration (1798 - 1837), one noted for the publication of several folio books with coloured plates. Enthusiastically...