Histoire des arbres forestiers de l’Amérique
F. André-Michaux. Paris, 1810-1813
The North American Sylva: or, a Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia, F. André-Michaux, et al....Philadelphia, 1857.
In 1802, the French government commissioned François André Michaux to finish a project that had decades earlier been first assigned to his famous botanist father, André: a comprehensive survey of North American trees. Along with seeds and seedlings, the information gleaned would support France’s efforts to replenish its own timber stands—decimated by decades of logging that furnished wood for French naval ships battling England—with new and fast growing tree species imported from the New World. The result was a richly illustrated three volume survey, published over three years (1810-1813) with the title Histoire des arbres forestiers de l’Amérique.
Thanks to the extensive North American travels that intrepid Michaux undertook to collect the material for his work, François had made the acquaintance of numerous United States-based naturalists (William Bartram and Alexander Wilson among them) who developed considerable interest in his work. In 1819 an English translation of Histoire was published as The North American Sylva.
In ensuing decades, British botanist Thomas Nuttall participated in a series of expeditions and explorations in North America that gave him material to enlarge Michaux’s work with additional trees not included in the original inventory. Nuttall’s contributions were published as volume 4 and 5 of the The North American Sylva’s 1857 edition.
The Illustrators
While Michaux’s inventory of North American trees may have been produced to inform his French patrons about New World resources, it was also clearly meant to impress. Much of the art illustrating the publication was the work of the famed early 19th century French botanical artists Pancrace Bessa, Pierre Josef Redouté, and his brother Henri Josef.
Bessa and the Redouté brothers lived and worked during years that were marked by historic revolutionary turbulence and war in Europe. Yet the early 19th century also marked a high point in French botanical art, and the work of these three artists is among the finest examples of the period.
Pancrace Bessa (1772-1846) is recognized as one of finest artists of what is often heralded as the golden age of European botanical illustration. Bessa was a student of the Dutch-born master botanical and zoological illustrator, Gerard van Spaendonck, who served as professor of floral painting at the famed botanical gardens of Paris, the Jardin des Plantes. The influence of Spaendonck’s renowned brilliance in using watercolor to represent plant and animal specimens in both aesthetically pleasing and scientifically precise terms is evident in the fine nuance and delicacy of Bessa’s work.
Bessa’s paintings are often compared with the works of his better-known contemporary, Pierre J. Redouté. Employed at various times as resident artists in the courts of France’s high aristocracy (including Marie Antoinette), Pierre J. Redouté and his younger brother Henri Josef eventually became scientific illustrators at the Jardin des Plantes, where Pierre Josef assumed a teaching position. An enthusiastic promoter of the newly developed printing technique known as color stipple engraving—which made luminous and richly hued reproductions of original artwork possible—over the course of his career P. J. Redouté illustrated some of the most spectacular works of floral art produced in late 18th and early 19th century France.
Stipple Engraving
Stipple engraving is a technique in intaglio printmaking where thousands of small, incised dots make up the image, as opposed to traditional line engraving where the image is built of variations in line. The result is a much softer, more subtle tonal image than line engraving. Such subtlety is apparent in the prints of The North American Sylva, which in their brilliant detail appear almost more like original colored pencils drawings than prints.
Sources:
True, Rodney, “François André Michaux, the Botanist and Explorer.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Dec. 10,1937), pp. 313-327.
Nissen, Claus, Die Botanische Buchillustration: Geschichte und Bibliographie. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1966.