Pierre Joseph Edoute, known in his time as the Raphael of Flowers, was born in 1759 in the Ardennes region of what was then a part of the Netherlands, became a part France in his lifetime, and is now Belgium. He came from an artistic family and began his working life as a religious artist, travelling around the north of Europe decorating various churches and it was while he was in Holland on one of those commissions that he first encountered the flower painting of Jan Van Juyson (1682-1749), and this was to be a crucial turning point in his career.

Unable to make a reasonable enough living with his church decorative work, Redoute found himself in the employment of his brother Antoine in his Paris studio, painting theatre stage sets, but he continued to develop his new found passion for flowers, and came to the notice of van Spaedonck and L’Heritier, two renowned botanical artists of the day, who decided to take Redoute into their patronage. He was invited to London, where he learned a great deal, and on his return to Paris he was appointed as personal tutor to Queen Marie Antoinette, and Master Draughtsman to the Queen’s Court.

In 1817 he began the publication of this now famous work, issued in sections between 1817 and 1824, and entitled simply Les Roses. Although ostensibly intended as a scientific treatise, produced in collaboration with the botanist Claude-Antoine Thory, it achieved its fame for the sheer beauty of the illustrations of which there are over on hundred and fifty, showing the glory and seemingly infinite variety of this legendary flower.

Pierre Joseph Redoute lived a long and active life and his death at the age of 81 was surely no other than he could have wished for, he died in the midst of a lecture he was giving at the Jardin des Plantes in 1840