Flore D'Amérique

These elegant vintage botanical images are from Etienne Denisse's sensational work " Flore d'Amérique dessinée d'après nature sur les lieux. Riche collection de plantes les plus remarquables, fleurs & fruits de grosseur & de grandeur naturelle. [Paris: Gihaut and Denisse, 1843-1846]. This seminal work on American botany consists of 201 hand-coloured lithographed plates. 

Denisse "worked for the botanical garden of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He lived for many years in the French West Indies, employed by the government [in Guadeloupe] to illustrate plants and collect horticultural specimens" (Paradise in Print... An Exhibition, New York Botanical Garden, April 2007).