Pancrace Bessa was a French natural history artist, best known for his botanical illustrations. Bessa was a student of the great engraver Gerard van Spaendonck

Gerard van Spaendonck

Gerard van Spaendonck was a Dutch painter.Gerard was born in Tilburg, an older brother of Cornelis van Spaendonck , who was also a renowned artist. In the 1760s he studied with decorative painter Willem Jacob Herreyns in Antwerp...

 and worked alongside Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Pierre-Joseph Redouté , was a Belgian painter and botanist, known for his watercolours of roses, lilies and other flowers at Malmaison. He was nicknamed "The Raphael of flowers"....

, some of whose influence shows in Bessa's detailed and delicate treatment of his subjects. He was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salons between 1806 and 1831.

Bessa's favourite subjects were fruit and flowers, with occasional digressions to birds and mammals. In 1816, the Duchesse de Berry, daughter-in-law of King Charles X of France, extended her patronage to him, which led to his giving painting lessons to the de Berry family. Their art connections went back to the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry or simply the Très Riches Heures is a richly decorated book of hours commissioned by John, Duke of Berry, around 1410...

. Bessa also worked on the French royal watercolour collection on vellum the Velins du Roi from 1823 until his death.

In the early nineteenth century, Bessa, Redouté, Jean-Louis Prévost, Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé, and Madame Vincent

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard , also known as Adélaïde Labille-Guiard des Vertus, was a French miniaturist and portrait painter.-Family:...

raised France to pre-eminence in the genre of botanical painting. Bessa developed a masterful use of stipple engraving technique, an essential part of colour printing. Bessa and Redoute collaborated on the Histoire des Arbres Forestiers de L'Amerique Septentrionale, which appeared between 1810 and 1813. He prepared some 572 watercolours for L'Herbier Général de L'Amateur by Mordant de Launey and Loiseleur Longchamp, which appeared between 1810 and 1826. Description des Plantes cultivees a Malmaison a Navarre used 9 of Bessa's illustrations and 54 by Redouté.

Bessa’s final work was Flore des Jardiniers, published in 1836.

External links

• Exhibition: Pancrace Bessa and the Golden Age of French Botanical Illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation