Skip to main content

Pierre-Joseph Redouté watercolours of French grapes



The Luxembourg Garden in Paris is hosting an exhibition of Pierre-Joseph Redouté watercolours of French grape varieties at the Davioud Pavilion from 1-4 September 2022. The exhibition is called Les Raisins de Redouté – The Grapes of Redouté.

 

A hundred watercolors of Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s French grape varieties were found at the Academy of Agriculture in Paris. They testify to the birth of a science of wines.

 

Belgium-born Redouté (1759-1840) had moved to Paris in 1782 at the age of 23, where he joined his older brother Antoine painting scenery for theatres. In Paris, he met several botanists who suggested a career in botanical drawings. 

 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French Minister of the Interior Jean-Antoine Chaptal asked Pierre-Joseph Redouté, known for his paintings of the roses of the Château de Malmaison, to represent all the French grape varieties gathered in a collection in the Luxembourg Garden. Redouté initially presented 83 watercolors of vine varieties on vellum (paper made from plant and tree fibres). 

 

Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s watercolours mark a highly symbolic date in the history of French viticulture: the beginnings of ampelography. At a time of renewed interest in indigenous grape varieties and the many questions posed by global warming, Redouté’s vellums testify to the past diversity in a country where 95% of wine production is now based on 40 varieties. 

 

In November 2021, his watercolours were published for the first time with an explanatory text by one of the greatest French ampelographers in France, Jean-Michel Boursiquot. Beyond the reproduction of these watercolour plates, it is the history of wine and the vine – or how France worried about the quality of wine from the nineteenth century. The book concludes with a scientific perspective on the future of the vine in the twenty-first century.






















 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

 

Martinasblogs

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Animal Website

Flower Website

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 


MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...
1 comment
Read more

Shindi: the Georgian Cornelian cherry

The Cornelian cherry – shindi in Georgian – is a fruit with medicinal and decorative properties. It was grown from ancient times, according to the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). It is also commonly called the European cornel. It is native to southern Europe from France to Ukraine as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. The Cornelian cherry tree ( Cornus mas ) can be grown in orchards, but it is often seen in the forests of Georgia where it grows up to 1,350 metres above sea level. It is a medium to large deciduous tree, growing from 5-12 metres tall. The flowers are small with four yellow petals in clusters, which flower in February and March. The Cornus mas has three botanical varieties: (1) var. typica Sanadze with cylindrical red fruits, (2) var. pyriformis Sanadze with pear-shaped red fruits, and (3) var. flava vest with yellow fruits. The fruits are oblong red drupes about 2 centimetres ...
Post a Comment
Read more