Fine Art

Rosa centifolia Burgundiaca — History & Facts

A single thorny stem carries one full pink rose, deeper red at its heart, with a tight red bud on each side wrapped in green sepals. Toothed leaves grow in sets along the stem. Engraved lettering below gives the names Rosa Centifolia Burgundiaca and La Cent-feuilles de Bordeaux, with the painter's, printer's and engraver's credits beneath. Pierre-Joseph Redouté painted the rose for Les Roses, published in Paris in three volumes from 1817 to 1824 with a text by Claude-Antoine Thory; this plate is in the third volume, of 1824.

Langlois engraved it and the Rémond press printed it. Plates in Les Roses were stipple engravings that combined printed color with hand coloring, a thin wash of watercolor added over the image. Thory wrote that this small cabbage rose grows only about a foot and a half tall, yet its flower can be as large as the ordinary cabbage rose. Paris growers raised it under glass frames, and it was one of the first roses to appear each spring at the Paris flower market.

It is in the California State Library in San Francisco.

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