Roses 2 24 color plates, 16 x 12 inches, stiff card wrappers with color pictorial dust jacket and glassine wrapper (soft bound). Dust jacket in good condition with some wear to extremities and light soiling – glassine wrapper in fair condition with large paper loss and tears; plates in very good clean condition with soft bump to upper right corner throughout (outside plate area). A selection of the famous rose images painted by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, reproduced with the high-quality printing associated with the Ariel Press. The thick matte paper and the high quality printing mirror the look of the original stipple engravings. The outstanding artistic and botanical talent of Redoute is attested to by the fact that both Queen Marie-Antoinette and, after the French Revolution, Josephine, Empress to Napoleon Bonaparte, patronised him. The images in this selection are chosen from the 170 stipple engravings of paintings of roses in the gardens of Malmaison, published in three large folios from 1817 to 1824. Redoute’s images are exceptional in their combination of botanical accuracy and artistic beauty.