Rare 1801 REDOUTÉ Large Folio Engraving from Duhamel du Monceau, BETULA (Birch)

Description: 1801-1819 Rare Large Folio Hand-Colored Copper-Plate Stipple-Engravingby Pierre-Joseph Redouté, from: TRAITÉDES ARBRES ET ARBUSTESQUE L'ON CULTIVE EN FRANCE EN PLEINE TERRE PAR DUHAMEL Seconde édition considérablement augmentée. BETULA excelsa (BOULEAY élevé), T.3. No. 52 This Folio originates from Duhamel du Monceau's Traité des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France en pleine terre par Duhamel Seconde édition considérablement augmentée, Stipple-Engraved & hand-colored after paintings by the famed Pierre-Joseph Redouté. This print displays the incredible, famous drawing & painting by the Redouté, cut into copper with Redouté's famed Stipple-Engraving technique by Gabriel (possibly Pierre Gabriel Langlois), which imparted fine toning more closely duplicating his original watercolor paintings, & expertly inked with colors in the plate & pressed into thick, handmade rag paper by the famed Imprimerie de Langloise. The Volumes:Traité des Arbres et Arbustes que l'on cultive en France en plein terre... Seconde Édition was issued between 1801 & 1819 in 7 volumes. It contained 498 plates which illustrate this work, published in 83 issues of 6 plates each, which were engraved by around fifty artists, based on the original paintings by Redouté and Bessa. The book was virtually new & very different than the more primitive engravings of Duhamel's first draft, although it carried as its author the name of France's outstanding dendrologist of the mid-eighteenth century" (Stafleu TL2 1547). This "New Duhamel" has these spectacular large folio stipple engravings, colored in the plate 'À la poupée'. It also includes a study of fruit trees, which is not found in the original edition, and which we owe to Messrs. Veillard, Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Mirbel, Poiret and Loiseleur-Deslongchamps. The Artist:Pierre-Joseph Redouté (10 July 1759 – 19 June 1840), was a painter and botanist from Belgium, known for his watercolors of roses, lilies and other flowers at the Château de Malmaison, many of which were published as large colored stipple engravings. He was nicknamed "the Raphael of flowers" and has been called the greatest botanical illustrator of all time. Born in 1759 at St. Hubert in the present-day Belgian province of Luxembourg, Redouté and his two brothers – who also became artists – were descended from a family of Belgian painters. After receiving training in his father’s studio, Redouté set out at just thirteen years of age to earn a living as an artist. Eventually, in 1782 at the age of twenty-three, Pierre-Joseph joined his elder brother, Antoine-Ferdinand, designing stage scenery for the Théâtre-Italien in the rue de Louvois (Blunt 1967). Redouté was an official court artist of Marie Antoinette, and continued painting through the French Revolution and Reign of Terror. He 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. He combined great artistic skills with a pleasing and ingratiating personality which assisted him with his influential patrons. After Queen Marie-Antoinette, his patrons included both of Napoleon's wives – Empress Joséphine and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma – as well as Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, wife of Louis Philippe I, the last king of France. Redouté collaborated with the greatest botanists of his day and participated in nearly fifty publications depicting both the familiar flowers of the French court and plants from places as distant as Japan, America, South Africa, and Australia. He worked from live plants rather than herbarium specimens, which contributed to his fresh subtle renderings. He was painting during a period in botanical illustration (1798 – 1837) that is noted for the publication of outstanding folio editions with colored plates. Redouté produced over 2,100 published plates depicting over 1,800 different species, many never rendered before. Of the French botanical illustrators employed in the French capital, Redouté is the one who remains in the public consciousness today. He is seen as an important heir to the tradition of the Flemish and Dutch flower painters Brueghel, Ruysch, van Huysum and de Heem. The Author:Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (20 July 1700, Paris – 13 August 1782, Paris), was a French physician, naval engineer and dendrologist.[1] The standard author abbreviation Duhamel is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name. Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau was the son of Alexandre Duhamel, lord of Denainvilliers. In his youth he developed a passion for botany, but at his father's wish he studied law from 1718 to 1721. After inheriting his father's large estate, he expanded it into a model farm, where he developed and tested new methods of horticulture, agriculture and forestry. The results of this work, he published in numerous publications on trees, botany, fruit growing, as well as many other topics. His works are nearly ninety in number and include many technical handbooks. In 1738 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences, and served three times as its president. He was appointed Inspector-General of the Marine in 1739, and made scientific studies of shipbuilding, the conservation of wood. Starting in 1755, Duhamel began publishing an eight-volume work titled Traité complet des Bois et des Fôrets that would attempt to detail all aspects of trees including their planting, growth, maintenance, and transportation. The first installation started with two volumes titled Traité des Arbres et Arbustes (1755), the precursor to the edition which contained these magnificent prints. The Printer:François L’Anglois or Langlois (12 May 1589 – 13 January 1647),[1] also called F. L. D. Ciartres ("François Langlois from Chartres"), was a French print publisher, print seller, engraver, bookseller, art dealer, and painter. He is widely considered to have been the first important print publisher in France and to have contributed significantly to spreading awareness of contemporary artists' work throughout Europe. The Prints & Technique:In this print the technique of color stipple engraving is used to reproduce the delicate flowers & leaves. Redouté learned about the potential of stipple engraving on his visit to England in 1786 and experimented with and perfected the method on his return to France. He promoted the technique as effective in recreating the sheen of the leaves and petals found in his original watercolors.Following a successful court case in which he defended his rights to use it he declared: 'The process which we invented in 1796 for color printing consists in the employment of these colors on a single plate by a method of our own. We have thereby succeeded in giving to our prints all the softness and brilliance of a watercolor'.Redouté’s technique, modeled upon that of van Spaendonck, involved “pure water colour, gradated with infinite subtlety and very occasionally touched with body-color to suggest sheen” (Blunt 1967, 179). Redouté eventually perfected the reproduction of his paintings for publication using stipple engraving, which used dots, rather than lines, to engrave plates, with varying dot density being used to convey tone and shading (Blunt 1967). Condition:Appears to be in Good-to-Very Good condition for a 223-year-old engraving. The hand-coloring À la poupée appears to remain as beautiful as the day it was printed. The delicate shimmering effect of the leaves rendered by the stipple-engraved toning & subtle coloring in the plate, also compelling. Typical minor age-toning around edges. These prints are very old & may have imperfections expected with age, such as age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.Text Page(s): This one comes without the original text page. About this Gorgeous Tree:'Betula excelsa' appears to be what's now called Betula papyrifera, (paper birch, also known as (American) white birch and canoe birch)Paper Birch is a familiar species of birch native to northern North America, named after the tree's thin white bark, which often peels in paper-like layers from the trunk. It is the provincial tree of Saskatchewan and the state tree of New Hampshire.Birchbark Canoes: Native Americans discovered that birchbark was light, waterproof, and strong. It did not shrink, so sheets of it could be sewn together. Unlike the bark of other trees, the grain of birch runs around the tree rather than parallel to the trunk. This allowed it to be formed into the sophisticated and subtle forms that became the birchbark canoe. Size: 16 x 10 inches approximately. Shipping: Multiple prints combine into one flattened medium flat-rate box. If you'd like to combine & need more time to choose, please send a message & we'll do our best to oblige. If you're assessed multiple shipping for one combined package, we'll endeavor to refund any overage asap. Thanks for Visiting!

Price: 46.23 USD

Location: Great Barrington, Massachusetts

End Time: 2024-12-29T23:21:13.000Z

Shipping Cost: 15 USD