Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

Pierre-Joseph REDOUTÉ
Flemish 1759–1840
Josephinia imperatricis
c. 1803
watercolour and gouache over pencil, red and gold pen
and ink on vellum
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge PD.122-1973.64
Josephine’s botanist Étienne Pierre
Ventenat was commissioned to compile the
descriptions for the enormous botanical
publication Jardin de la Malmaison
(The garden at Malmaison). He named one
of the forty-six Australian plants reproduced
in this work Josephinia imperatricis
(Imperial Josephine), unaware that Joseph
Banks had already collected this species
from Australia’s east coast during James
Cook’s first voyage, in 1770. Banks had had
the species drawn but had not published
it, and so it was the French name that took
priority.
139
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