The refined and revered tradition of botanical illustration, produced under aristocratic patronage, stretches back to the Renaissance. It emerged out of the desire to catalogue nature in all its wild splendour, and it was a process that demanded the most precise and skilful of artists.
French flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redout? is often viewed as one of the last and the best of these painters and engravers. Commissioned by among others, Napoleon's Josephine, Redout? studied with the finest flo...