Metrosideros Anomala

Title

Metrosideros Anomala

The illustration shows a Metrosideros Anomala (ironwood) and 5 depictions of the structure of a flower. It is a genus of plants in the myrtle family. From the original drawing by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. This engraving is from his first book "Jardine la Malmaison" , which shows Josephine’s flowers (Napoleon’s first wife, who had one of the most famous flower gardens of her time at her estate at Malmaison)

ca. 1803

Artist

Redouté (1759-1840)

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) came from a family of painters. His grandfather, Jean-Jacques Redouté (1687–1752), worked on commissions for churches and monasteries, and his father, Charles-Joseph Redouté (1715–1776), also earned his living as a painter. Redouté became familiar with the works of the great Flemish masters, particularly Rachel Ruysch and Jan van Huysum. Their floral paintings opened up a new world for him. The name Redouté has become synonymous with beauty, and in the world of botanical art, he is considered the very best. Many of his works were based on Claude-Antoine Thory’s personal collection as well as from the rose garden of Empress Joséphine’s estate in Malmaison. Redouté and Thory described nearly all of the major rose species known in their time. Redouté’s fame is largely due to his tireless efforts to perfect the technique of stipple engraving. This labor-intensive and therefore costly method produces subtle yet striking color variations and is superior to standard line engraving. Each plate was created using the à la poupée method, where color was applied directly to the printing plate before each impression. After printing, additional color was meticulously applied by hand. Redouté was known for his exceptional artistic talent and taught several prominent figures, including Queen Marie-Antoinette, Empress Joséphine, Marie-Louise, and Queen Marie-Amélie. He is widely regarded as the finest botanical illustrator of the early 19th century—if not of all time. The stipple engraving and color printing process gives Redouté’s rose prints their vibrant quality. Stippling is an etching technique that uses dots instead of lines to form the image. Color printing was achieved by applying colored inks directly to the copperplate for each print. The use of green and brown inks for stems and leaves, and red or pink for the flowers, created more vivid results—eliminating the need to hand-color a black-ink print with watercolor afterward.

Historical Description

Plant science, or botany, deals in detail with the diversity of the plant world and tries to bring it into a system. The plants are examined in terms of structure, growth, life cycle, reproduction, metabolism and chemical properties. Plant science is one of the oldest sciences: people have been studying the effects of certain plants since early on. What was of interest was whether these were edible or of a healing nature. Today, five sub-areas make up botany. Plant morphology studies plant structure and form. This includes the internal and external structure as well as the structure of the plant cell. Plant physiology examines functional processes such as metabolism. Plant systematics brings order to the plant world. It describes precisely the different types of plants. Geobotany deals with the location of the plants. This includes the interaction between the plant and its environment. Ecophysiology explores to what extent and why plants have adapted to their environment in the past. This is particularly interesting because this also happens in environments with hostile conditions.