![]() ![]() He enjoyed painting lavish, sculptural flowers, round in form: the heavy-headed French centifolia roses, the fluffy white Roman chamomile, which is almost a leitmotif in his work. His brilliance lies in the orchestration of the whole. Although each bloom has a freshness and immediacy which suggests that he studied it from life, like most 17 th-century flower painters he worked from exquisitely-executed drawings made as each flower came into season, and kept as an important reference archive. Monnoyer mixes spring flowers like the hyacinth with the flowers of summer, such as the roses. ![]() A pair of flower paintings sold at Christie's London on 7th September 1995, lot 36, 46.3 x 39 cm, replicates many of these species in different arrangements. All are species familiar in Monnoyer's work and highly regarded, though not excessively rare, in French aristocratic gardens of the 17 th century. x provincialis), single yellow roses (Rosa foetida), orange blossom (Citrus aurantium), and two types of carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus plenus albo-violescens and Dianthus caryophyllus plenus albo-cinnabarescens). The second bouquet consists of French roses (Rosa gallica ab R. Versicolor), poppy anemones (Anemone coronaria pseudo-plena lavandulo-alba), double campernelle (Narcissus x odora Plenus), a hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis), a tulip (Tulipa chrysantha x T. The first painting depicts York-and-Lancaster roses, so called because they combine the white favoured by the house of York with the red of the Lancastrians, (Rosa x damascena cv. Because Monnoyer is working on the small scale of a "cabinet painting", these works are more delicate and highly finished than his large-scale decorative flowerpieces. This charming pair of paintings shows him working on a small, intimate scale, applying his genius to modest bouquets tied with blue ribbon. ![]() Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, one of the greatest of French baroque flower painters, depicted blooms in every guise from a single flowering twig to elaborate arrangements of flowers in stone urns with tapestries and architectural backgrounds.
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