Turmeric (Curcuma Longa)

about 1800

Medium

Watercolor and pencil, with touches of gum arabic on parchment, on vellum

Dimensions

47.3 × 34.2 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-214755

Pierre-Joseph Redouté depicts a flowering stem and leaf of the Curcuma longa plant, from whose underground stem is sourced the spice turmeric. The artist also includes three details of the plant’s flower structure, revealing the reproductive anatomy of the Curcuma longa from different angles. Rendered with scientific precision against the undelineated space of the luminous vellum substrate, this delicate botanical study is one of 487 watercolors drawn by Redouté for his monumental eight-volume Les Liliacées (The Lilacs, ca. 1802–16). Turmeric is a flowering plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Its roots, when ground into powder, are often used for medicinal and cooking purposes (particularly as a spice for curries), as well as for dyeing fabric. At the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and likely at Malmaison as well, the turmeric plant flowers in the month of August, which is probably when Redouté painted it. By the turn of the nineteenth century, when Redouté created this drawing, France had extensive colonial holdings throughout India.