Volume published in Paris in 1813 by Aimè Bonpland and dedicated to Empress Josephine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte and great lover of botany, who rearranged the gardens at Malmaison Castle.

The book includes a first part dedicated to the textual description of the various species of rare plants grown in the garden at Malmaison and near Navarre, which is followed by a part comprising 64 lithographed plates of considerable size (the volume measuring almost 60 cm).

The making of the lithographs is based largely on drawings by the botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté, best known for his drawings of roses, whose name is visible on the bottom left of the panels: Redouté pinxit (Redouté painted). On the bottom right, the name of the person who materially made the lithographs can be seen, Bouquet: Bouquet sculpsit (Bouquet sculpted).

It is, as you can see from the images, printed in colour of great quality and with a high level of detail.

Three plates from the volume, from the copy kept at the Missouri Botanical Garden (from Internet Archive)

Go to the catalogue entry.

You can view the entire volume digitised by the Missouri Botanical Garden:

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