While thumbing through Katharine White for this post, I came across this helpful thumbnail history and commentary on Pierre-Joseph Redoute, the botanical illustrator previously mentioned in posts here and here:
The best portraits ever painted of the old French roses about which Graham Thomas writes are by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, the great botanical artist of the Napoleonic era. Redoute was born in Belgium; the Empress Josephine was his patron, and he worked at Malmaison for years, painting the roses in her garden. The Ariel Press, in London, published, in 1954 and 1956, a pair of folio-size volumes that reproduce four dozen of the Redoute plants .... I have seen only Volume 2, which has an over-ecstatic and none too accurate English introduction by Eva Mannering. The Redoute plates are what matter; every one of them makes a modern rose look clumsy.
Josephine retired to and died at Chateau de Malmaison, which she called her favorite house (no kidding: lose Napoleon and get great gardens and Redoute. I'd take that deal.). More Napoleon: The unseen presence of "Boney" looms large in the two latest installments of the Horatio Hornblower TV-movie series (only to be quickly and happily overshadowed by Ioan Gruffudd's scenes in long, flowing, curly locks and open nightshirt. /Homer Simpson 'mmm...burger' drool). And yesterday's Beethoven day brought a drive-time performance of the "Emperor" concerto (composed after Napoleon's invasion of Vienna), which, it's been suggested, would be more aptly titled "Anti-Emperor". Funny to have Napoleon (or the shade of his twisted, shrunken spirit) buzz-buzz-buzzing around here like his emblematic imperial bee.
[Technical note: The final e in Redoute should have an accent aigu, but my attempts to reproduce it look like this: RedoutJ. I've read the "Help" file in Typepad on adjusting my browser settings to fix this, but haven't been able to effect the recommended fix...I'll leave it for another day when I have more time, patience and brain cells. All apologies.]
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