No flower painter has so linked his name and immortality with a single genus as has Redouté with the rose. The three-volume Les Roses is Redouté’s most famous work, and its 170 hand-colored plates the most frequently reproduced of all botanicial illustrations. Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) was born into a family of Belgian painters, and at the age of 23 left for Paris to pursue his studies. He ultimately served as drawing master to the queens and princesses of France for half a century, from Marie Antoinette to Marie Amélie. Many of the paintings for Les Roses were made from the hundreds of varieties in the Empress Josephine’s rose garden at Malmaison. This Octavo Edition reproduces one of only five copies printed in large folio format on vélin paper, with a double set of plates, plain and colored, and includes, for the first time, a complete English translation. Commentary by Sandra Raphael.