Bibliothèque nationale de France.

What most people don't realize about Nicolas Robert is that he essentially invented the job of royal botanical painter. Louis XIV created the position specifically for him in 1666 - peintre ordinaire du Roi pour la miniature - because no one else in France could do what Robert did on vellum. He'd already been working for Gaston d'Orléans, painting specimens from the duke's garden at Blois, before the crown claimed him. This sheet of "Flower Studies" shows why. Six specimens, each identified in period calligraphic French: a dog's-tooth violet with reflexed petals exposing orange stamens, a scarlet tulip whose color graduates from yellow at the base to deep red at the tips, a pink hepatica with closed buds alongside open blooms, a Merveille du Pérou (four o'clock flower), a white narcissus, and a simple yellow buttercup. What kills me is the tulip leaf - it has brown spots and a slight curl. That's not damage to the painting. Robert painted the damage to the leaf. He recorded imperfection because imperfection was data. He worked on vellum, not paper. Calfskin, stretched and scraped smooth. Watercolor on vellum doesn't bleed or feather - it sits on the surface like enamel, which is why these pigments still punch after three centuries. The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge holds this sheet. If you ever see vellum botanical work in person, you'll understand immediately why paper feels like a compromise. Every vein in every petal is where Robert decided it should be. Nothing soaks. Nothing escapes. Nothing fades. Quelle: meisterdrucke.com

Nicolas Robert, frontispiece representing Zephyrus for La Guirlande de Julie, 17th century

Gif de DentelleDeLune

Passerin nonpareil sur une branche (Passerina Ciris) by Nicholas Robert, 1673.

Nicolas Robert (1614 - 1685) - A Bergamot Plant. Watercolour and gouache on prepared vellum.

Nicolas Robert: Cotorra violeta sobre unha rocha  (Pionus fuscus), s. XVII [á poxa en Christie's]

Seeds, from an album of 79 drawings entitled 'Roberts's Drawings of Plants, Birds, Shells &c. Vol.I'; watercolour and bodycolour, on vellum. Nicolas Robert, 1625-1684