Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"

Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"

Pierre Joseph Redouté

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published in eighty parts between 1802 and 1816, Les liliacées is Redouté’s largest and most ambitious work, and perhaps the one for which he is best known today. Each of its 503 plates contains a lifesize and naturalistic depiction of a flower, carefully rendered in stipple engraving and watercolor. Redouté created the portfolio under the patronage of Josephine Bonaparte, who cultivated a great variety of flowers in her garden at the Château de Malmaison. Her roses served as Redouté’s models for his equally elaborate publication Les roses (1817–24).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"Plate 131, Fritillaria Imperialis, from "Les Liliacées"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.