Jardin De La Malmaison: Empress Josephine's Garden with an essay by Marina Heilmeyer - Hardcover

Lack, H. Walter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 379133185X ISBN 13: 9783791331850

Publisher: Prestel Pub, 2004

Synopsis

The extraordinary early nineteenth century gardens of Josephine Bonaparte at Malmaison are revealed in this lavish publication. One hundred and twenty colored stipple engravings depict a dazzling array of exotic plants from around the world, while the text tells the fascinating story of how the first wife of Napoleon I came to transform a modest estate on the outskirts of Paris into a botanical and zoological garden to rival the great Jardin des Plantes itself.

Keen to have these biological rarities recorded in lifelike watercolor, Josephine engaged the foremost plant illustrator of the day, Pierre-Joseph Redoute, to paint 120 of them on fine parchment, and commissioned Etienne-Pierre Ventenat, librarian of the Pantheon in Paris, to write accompanying plant descriptions. She then arranged for the text and illustrations to be published together as the Jardin de la Malmaison. A number of engravers were employed to produce colored stipple engravings after Redoute's watercolors, and the publication appeared in twenty installments between April 1803 and November 1805.

About this title

From the Publisher

Of the two hundred original copies of the Jardin de la Malmaison, only twelve were sold commercially, the rest being distributed as gifts from the French state to European monarchs and dignitaries. Since each copy was hand-corrected by a colorist and since each was individually bound according to the whims of its particular owner, no two copies are alike. Prestel's book reproduces, in a slightly reduced format, all the plates from a famous copy of the Jardin, the so-called Zwei-Kaiser-Buch that was once owned by Franz I, Emperor of Austria, but is now kept at the Botanical Museum in Berlin.

About the Author

H. Walter Lack is director of the Botanical Gardens and the Botanical Museum in Berlin. He is the author of several publications on botanical history and a professor at the Freie Universitat Berlin. Marina Hellmeyer is an art historian, working principally for the Botanical Museum in Berlin. She is the author of The Language of Flowers (Prestel).

Edition details

• Publisher: Prestel Pub
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 379133185X
• ISBN 13: 9783791331850
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 327