The Lilies

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Summary: FACSIMILE VOLUME OF RARE 19TH CENTURY BOTANICAL TREASURES
Review: You don't have to be a connoisseur of lilies to appreciate these beautiful specimens. If you are a horticulturalist or just an art lover, this new book will fascinate you. Gathering all of the plates from Pierre-Joseph Redouté's original eight volumes (published between 1802 and 1816), The Lilies is not just a book about lilies, it's also a foray into the exacting and rare art of botanical illustration.

Redouté is widely considered one of the best botanical illustrators in history. He was not only breathtakingingly skilled at transferring the natural world onto paper, but was also devoted to improving printing technology. Amongst other advances, he introduced "stipple-engraving" to France and refined the technique of single plate color engraving. Redouté's contributions to the art of botanical illustration are unequalled and his original printed work is highly collectible. The complete set of original volumes of The Lilies is currently valued at approximately $400,000.

For considerably less, you can have all of 486 of Redouté's lilies, beautifully reproduced on thick, creamy paper. THE LILIES, the latest in TASCHEN's historically accurate facsimile editions, is a botanical delight.