A true story about my acquistion of Redoute's greatest collection of watercolors

Les Liliacées by Redouté 29/8/2020 PAST SALE Specializing in botanical watercolors, the Belgian artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté comes to Versailles in 1788 for his career after training in the Royal gardens of Kew. From 1800 he contributes by his drawings to the reissue of the Traité des Arbres et Arbustes by Duhamel du Monceau and from 1798 he is the favorite artist of the future empress Joséphine. His direct commitment to botany takes place in two phases : 486 watercolors on vellum on Liliaceae from 1802 to 1816 followed by 168 Roses from 1817 to 1824. His scientifically accurate drawings are taken from life in the gardens of La Malmaison, Saint-Cloud, Versailles and Sèvres. All the watercolors of the Liliacées, bound in 16 volumes 48 x 35 cm for a total weight of nearly 150 kg, were originally entrusted to Joséphine's library in La Malmaison. The lot was sold on November 20, 1985 for $ 5.5M including premium by Sotheby's after a sensational opening bid of $ 5M, the highest at that time in an art sale. The buyer was a young dealer of rare books and prints named W. Graham Arader, who immediately made him known. To carry out this operation, he had created a syndicate of clients. Each share gave the right to own four watercolors, some were still available and he kept 30% of the whole. He had been the only bidder but according to his statements gathered by the New York Times he was covered up to $ 20M. The pieces were chosen in turn by Arader's clients according to a priority determined by a draw. Arader has not disclosed the names of his shareholders. Steve Jobs was probably one of them. The watercolor of an iris was sold for $ 200K including premium by Freeman's on April 29, 2018. SCIENCES FROM 1800 Comments are closed. Author Pierre Archives October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 RSS Feed