Pitcairnia bromeliifolia L\'Heritier
Literature references:
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Comments:
- Icones Bromeliacearum I. by Robert W. Read in J. Brom. Soc. 36(3): 120-4. 1986
During the heyday of the flower painters in the seventeenth century, when there was a great demand for picture books of flowers and garden subjects, and following the period of the herbals, there evolved a trend from the simply illustrative rendition of a useful herb toward the artistically beautiful and the colorful horticultural subject for the sake of beauty. With the development of scientific botany the artist's portrayal of plants ranged from the simple fact of something new to something lovely growing in one of the great gardens of the time. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries botanical artists were busy filling the pages of folios, journals of horticulture, and scientific works of great magnitude and beauty. More recently the photograph has largely usurped the place of the botanical artist although for truly scientific illustration there is still a great need for the talented botanical illustrator.
Many processes of reproduction have been used at one time or another for botanical illustration: woodcuts, etching, and metal-engraving; aquatint, mezzotint, and stipple with or without color, and finally, lithography, with hand-colored engravings or etching. Oils, which are fine for floral portraits, were not very satisfactory for botanical representation which responded best to water colors and this medium proved to be the most popular for the many works we will present in the present series; pen and ink reproduced by etching, and engraving for the rest. One of the most celebrated flower painters of his day was Pierre Joseph . Redoute, a contemporary of John James Audubon. A bromeliad was portrayed in 1789, as part of his collaboration with Charles Louis L'Heritier de Brutelle, one of the great botanists of the day. This portrayal of Pitcairnia bromeliifolia L'Heritier, in fact, established the basis for the genus. The generic name Pitcairnia L'Heritier is conserved by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature based on Pitcairnia bromeliifolia L'H6ritier of Jamaica. The illustration (fig. 7) by Redoute, which accompanied the original description in L'Heritier's famous Sertum Anglicum, is the type for the species since no herbarium voucher was cited or is known to exist.
Four more illustrations of Pitcairnia, these in full color, were published by Redoute in his beautiful folio Les Liliacees in 1804 with the text by the famous botanist A.P. de Candolle. Two are reproduced in figures 8 and 9. It seems the plate numbers were reversed, at least in the copy I examined sometime back. Plate 75, P. bromeliifolia is cited in the index as pl. 76 and, indeed, it is located following pl. 76 which was labelled as P. angustifolia. The latter is cited as pl. 75 in the index. The copy I saw was renumbered in pencil on the lower right of the plate to correspond with the index. These plates were published using stipple engraving with color. The original set of Redoute watercolors on vellum (ca. 19 x 13 1/2 inches) was originally commissioned by the Empress Josephine, and acquired from Pierre-Joseph Redoute for somewhere between 25,000 and 84,000 francs. Sotheby's in New York recently prepared a catalog containing reproductions of most of the paintings in full color and sold the set for a phenomenal price.
A Belgian by birth, Redoute left home at the age of 13 to work as a decorator, his family's ancestral trade. He soon joined his brother who was a stage and scene designer in Paris. It was there that he met the great French botanist L'Heritier de Brutelle and the flower painter Gerard van Spaendonck. After spending considerable time in the Jardin du Roi drawing flowers, he was commissioned eventually to assist with the velins du Museum dHistoire Naturelle (velins du Roi). Soon after that he was appointed drawing master to Marie Antoinette.
The Empress Josephine, the most important of Redoute's patrons, wished to record for posterity the flowers of Malmaison and, naturally, turned to Redoute in 1798 to paint a series of watercolors for her bedroom. He next made the drawings for Ventenat's two-volume Jardin de la Malmaison, and a further record of Josephine Bonaparte's collection of plants in Bonpland's Description des Plantes Rares Cultivees d Malmaison et a Navarre.
Following Josephine's divorce from Napoleon, Redoute became drawing master to the Empress Marie-Louise. His most famous work, Les Roses, while inspired by the Empress Josephine's marvelous rose collection, was not published until three years after her death. —See Smith & Downs 1974
- During the heyday of the flower painters in the seventeenth century, when there was a great demand for picture books of flowers and garden subjects, and following the period of the herbals, there evolved a trend from the simply illustrative rendition of a useful herb toward the artistically beautiful and the colorful horticultural subject for the sake of beauty. With the development of scientific botany the artist's portrayal of plants ranged from the simple fact of something new to something lovely growing in one of the great gardens of the time. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries botanical artists were busy filling the pages of folios, journals of horticulture, and scientific works of great magnitude and beauty. More recently the photograph has largely usurped the place of the botanical artist although for truly scientific illustration there is still a great need for the talented botanical illustrator.
Many processes of reproduction have been used at one time or another for botanical illustration: woodcuts, etching, and metal-engraving; aquatint, mezzotint, and stipple with or without color, and finally, lithography, with hand-colored engravings or etching. Oils, which are fine for floral portraits, were not very satisfactory for botanical representation which responded best to water colors and this medium proved to be the most popular for the many works we will present in the present series; pen and ink reproduced by etching, and engraving for the rest. One of the most celebrated flower painters of his day was Pierre Joseph . Redoute, a contemporary of John James Audubon. A bromeliad was portrayed in 1789, as part of his collaboration with Charles Louis L'Heritier de Brutelle, one of the great botanists of the day. This portrayal of Pitcairnia bromeliifolia L'Heritier, in fact, established the basis for the genus. The generic name Pitcairnia L'Heritier is conserved by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature based on Pitcairnia bromeliifolia L'H6ritier of Jamaica. The illustration (fig. 7) by Redoute, which accompanied the original description in L'Heritier's famous Sertum Anglicum, is the type for the species since no herbarium voucher was cited or is known to exist.
Four more illustrations of Pitcairnia, these in full color, were published by Redoute in his beautiful folio Les Liliacees in 1804 with the text by the famous botanist A.P. de Candolle. Two are reproduced in figures 8 and 9. It seems the plate numbers were reversed, at least in the copy I examined sometime back. Plate 75, P. bromeliifolia is cited in the index as pl. 76 and, indeed, it is located following pl. 76 which was labelled as P. angustifolia. The latter is cited as pl. 75 in the index. The copy I saw was renumbered in pencil on the lower right of the plate to correspond with the index. These plates were published using stipple engraving with color. The original set of Redoute watercolors on vellum (ca. 19 x 13 1/2 inches) was originally commissioned by the Empress Josephine, and acquired from Pierre-Joseph Redoute for somewhere between 25,000 and 84,000 francs. Sotheby's in New York recently prepared a catalog containing reproductions of most of the paintings in full color and sold the set for a phenomenal price.
A Belgian by birth, Redoute left home at the age of 13 to work as a decorator, his family's ancestral trade. He soon joined his brother who was a stage and scene designer in Paris. It was there that he met the great French botanist L'Heritier de Brutelle and the flower painter Gerard van Spaendonck. After spending considerable time in the Jardin du Roi drawing flowers, he was commissioned eventually to assist with the velins du Museum dHistoire Naturelle (velins du Roi). Soon after that he was appointed drawing master to Marie Antoinette.
The Empress Josephine, the most important of Redoute's patrons, wished to record for posterity the flowers of Malmaison and, naturally, turned to Redoute in 1798 to paint a series of watercolors for her bedroom. He next made the drawings for Ventenat's two-volume Jardin de la Malmaison, and a further record of Josephine Bonaparte's collection of plants in Bonpland's Description des Plantes Rares Cultivees d Malmaison et a Navarre.
Following Josephine's divorce from Napoleon, Redoute became drawing master to the Empress Marie-Louise. His most famous work, Les Roses, while inspired by the Empress Josephine's marvelous rose collection, was not published until three years after her death. —See Read 1986 p. 36(3): 119-124
