Louis Joseph Édouard Maubert

Louis Joseph Édouard Maubert (1806–1879): Short biography

Louis Joseph Édouard Maubert was a prominent French natural history painter and illustrator of the 19th century. He was born on January 30, 1806, in Calais. His artistic education began under the watercolor painter Louis Francia, before he moved to Paris around 1836. There, he refined his skills at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle under the guidance of the legendary flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Through this first-class schooling and his extraordinary talent, Maubert quickly gained access to the leading scientific and botanical circles of the French capital.

Maubert dedicated his professional life almost exclusively to naturalistic and scientifically precise botanical illustration. His proven technique was detailed watercolor painting over fine pencil drawings. To accurately capture the structure of the plants, the finished works were reproduced as copper or wood engravings, carefully hand-colored and enhanced with gum arabic, which gave the plant images a special luminosity.

He became famous primarily through his close collaboration with renowned botanists of his time. For Charles Antoine Lemaire, he illustrated his most important cactus work, the Iconographie descriptive des Cactées (1841–1847), as well as editions of the journal Horticulteur Universel. Furthermore, he provided magnificent plates for Jean Jules Linden's orchid work Pescatorea and Charles d’Orbigny's monumental Dictionnaire universel d'Histoire naturelle. Maubert lived and worked in Paris until his death, where he passed away on April 30, 1879, in his apartment on Rue de Buffon, right next to the Botanical Garden (Jardin des Plantes).

Interesting fact:

Although Maubert is primarily known today for his depictions of cacti and exotic orchids, his great passion was roses, following in the footsteps of his teacher Redouté. He remained true to this passion until the end: the very last picture he completed a few weeks before his death in spring 1879 was a portrait of a rose (the "Charles Margottin" variety) for the Journal des roses.