REDOUTÉ, Pierre-Joseph (Belgian, 1759-1840).
Watercolor for plate 1: “Sword-leaved Danella” Dianella ensifolia.
Prepared for Les Liliacées.
Watercolor and graphite on vellum.
Signed lower left: "P. J. Redouté".
ca. 1802-1816.
18 7/8" x 13 1/2" vellum.

Dianella ensifolia (sword-leaved dianella) is a lily-relative of the family Asphodelaceae (formerly Phormiaceae), characterized by its long, strap-shaped leaves reminiscent of a sword blade and its loose panicles of small star-shaped flowers in pale blue to white, followed by striking violet-blue berries.

The species is native to a vast territory encompassing East and Southeast Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka), the islands east of Africa (Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, and the Seychelles), and parts of northern and eastern Australia. Its wide distribution across tropical and subtropical island chains made it a frequent subject of early botanical exploration. The plant was common in the forests of Île de France (present-day Mauritius) and Île Bourbon (present-day Réunion), both French territories in the Indian Ocean that served as vital staging points for botanical exchange between Asia and Paris. Plants from Mauritius were regularly forwarded to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and from there, specimens could pass into Josephine’s collection at Malmaison.

The genus name Dianella is the diminutive of Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, a poetic allusion attributed to the naturalist Philibert Commerson, who collected in the Mascarene Islands during Bougainville’s circumnavigation (1766–1769).

The explorer Pierre Sonnerat, who collected in the East Indies and China in the 1770s, described this plant as the “reine des bois” (queen of the woods), a name that captured its elegant bearing in its woodland habitat.

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck formally named the genus Dianella—drawing on Commerson’s earlier poetic epithet—in his Encyclopédie méthodique of the 1780s, connecting the plant’s nomenclatural history to two generations of French naturalist-explorers who were central to building the collections that Redouté would illustrate.

The accompanying text in Les Liliacées records: “The ‘dianelle en glaive’ grows in the woods of the East Indies and in the Iles-de-France and Bourbon regions. [Pierre] Sonnerat named her the queen of the woods. [Philibert] Commerson, always poetic, compared it to Diane, and the name Diana, from which Lamarck took the name Dianelle. This plant is almost always in bloom and in fruit in the greenhouses of the plant garden. Its flowers, when they have full buds, are cylindrical and bloom slowly; the peduncles remain after the fruit has fallen.”

The phrase “the greenhouses of the plant garden” refers to the great glasshouses of the Jardin des Plantes (the former Jardin du Roi, renamed after the Revolution), the scientific institution with which Redouté worked closely and from which many specimens for Les Liliacées were drawn. The observation that the plant bloomed almost year-round in greenhouse conditions would have made it a prized addition to any collection, including Josephine’s.

Josephine Bonaparte’s garden at Malmaison was supplied in part through the Jardin des Plantes, whose director André Thouin had long-established contacts in the Mascarene Islands. Plants from Mauritius, including dianellas, would have been known to Josephine through both living specimens in her greenhouses and Redouté’s meticulous documentation.

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The unequalled botanical artist, Pierre-Joseph Redoute, occupies a central position in the development of European flower painting. Redoute had as pupils or patrons five queens and empresses of France, from Marie-Antoinette to Empress Josephine and her successor, Marie-Louise. Despite many changes of regime in a turbulent epoch, he worked without interruption, a testament to his greatness as an artist.

Les Liliacees, Redoute's largest and most ambitious work, is generally considered to be the artist's masterpiece. Produced under the patronage of the Empress Josephine, for whom Redoute worked as botanical artist at her estate at Malmaison, this pristine example represents a landmark work in the field of flower illustration. The title is misleading, for the work covers a much broader scope: the work includes representatives of the lily, amaryllis, iris, orchid, and other families. The plates were executed by means of stipple engraving, which, as noted, was a method that the artist himself perfected when he was unsatisfied with the effects garnered by traditional copper-plate engraving. As he shrewdly observed, the delicacy and subtle elegance of his compositions could only be captured using an equally fine printing method.

Les Liliacees records the plants of the lily family and related flowers that Josephine collected for her gardens at Malmaison. Redoute's small drawings, placed at the bottom of the main illustrations, record the anatomical features of each species so that each flower could be identified with precision and cultivated to perfection. Redoute's work represents a uniquely harmonious blend of scientific precision and supremely delicate artistry.

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