1803 Sellier after Bessa and Redoute - Wild Date Palm 51 x 34 cm. Hand coloured - Botany

Sellier, François Noël (b.1737) after; Pancrace Bessa (1772–1846) and Pierre-Joseph (1759-1840)

Phoenix reclinata (reclinata - Latin, reclining), the wild date palm or Senegal date palm, is a species of flowering plant in the palm family native to tropical Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. It is also reportedly naturalized in Florida, Puerto Rico, Bermuda and the Leeward Islands.

51 x 34 cm. Hand coloured

From the series:

VENTENAT, Etienne Pierre (1757-1808). 

Choix de plantes, dont la plupart sont cultivées dans le jardin de Cels. 

Paris: Crapelot, 'An XI - 1803' [1803-1808].

Redouté (1759-1840), the most celebrated student of Gerard Van Spaëndonck was, during the course of his long career, both 'Dessinateur du Cabinet de Marie-Antoinette' and 'Peintre de Fleurs' to Josephine Beauharnais. The latter commissioned him to make an artistic record of her garden of rare plants at Malmaison. The result, a collaboration with Ventenat, was the famous Jardin de Malmaison (1803-04). This present work, published around the same time, is further testimony to their successful collaboration. '[I]n terms of sustained consistency of quality over a vast output, Redouté has no parallel in the history of flower painting' (E. Hardouin-Fugier and E. Grafe, French Flower Painters of the 19th Century, 1989, p.334). 

References: Nissen BBI 2047; Stafleu & Cowen, VI 16.008.