Could the flower motifs on your tea­cups really be 200 years old? Abso­lutely. Today, you can adorn your walls with this flor­al splendor, sleep in bed­ding fea­tur­ing these blooms, or leaf through one of the many mag­ni­fi­cent cof­fee-table books ded­ic­ated to these botan­ic­al won­ders before bed — of which there are more today than ever before.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté
(1759–1840)

The story of Pierre-Joseph Redouté reads like a movie script: At the age of 13, he left his vil­lage in the Ardennes to become a paint­er­’s appren­tice. Three years later, he arrived in Par­is as a pen­ni­less stranger – and launched a cine­mat­ic career.

Redouté earned a few sous by selling small flower paint­ings to a street vendor. One of these images cap­tiv­ated the wealthy ama­teur bot­an­ist L’Héritier, who intro­duced him to one of the most respec­ted artists of the time, the Dutch­man Gérard van Spaen­don­ck. He recog­nized the young paint­er­’s tal­ent and ment­ored him – the begin­ning of a friend­ship that las­ted until the end of van Spaen­don­ck­’s life.

A Survivor Between Thrones

Redouté’s career sur­vived viol­ent polit­ic­al upheavals, includ­ing the French Revolu­tion. He served suc­cess­ively as the offi­cial paint­er for Queen Mar­ie-Ant­oinette, Empress Josephine Bona­parte, and Queen Mar­ie-Amélie. He even gave paint­ing les­sons to sev­er­al prin­cesses. His suc­cess was based on his abil­ity to cre­ate flower por­traits that pos­sessed a unique com­bin­a­tion of sci­entif­ic pre­ci­sion and artist­ic grace. His most fam­ous works, Les Lili­acées (on the lily fam­ily) and espe­cially Les Roses, were cre­ated dur­ing this peri­od, show­cas­ing plants from the French imper­i­al gar­dens.

Amaryl­lis de Josephine from Les lili­acées of 1813

Astronomic Prices and Everyday Art

Today, Redouté’s works com­mand astro­nom­ic­al prices. Ori­gin­al pages from his Choix des Belles Fleurs… are traded for $1,600, but com­plete volumes are truly expens­ive: his most fam­ous work, the three-volume Les Roses (pro­duced from 1817–1824), fetched €42,000 at Sotheby’s in 2024. In 1994, a copy even changed hands at Christie’s for around $330,000.

Yet, you don’t have to be a mil­lion­aire to enjoy Redouté. Wheth­er on por­cel­ain, table­cloths, or wall­pa­per – his works are more present today than ever before.

We will be diving much deep­er into the world of Pierre-Joseph Redouté here. Stay tuned for more!

Text: Ger­hard Groebe | Images: Pub­lic domain

Redouté’s art is truly time­less; two cen­tur­ies later, it is still in style – as shown here:

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