Tumeric (Curcuma longa)

Part of sixteen bound albums containing 487 original watercolour drawings on vellum by Redouté for Les Liliacées, acquired directly from the artist by the Empress Joséphine Bonaparte, Château de Malmaison
By descent to her son, Prince Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, later Duke of Leuchtenberg, Seeon-Seebruck, Bavaria
Thence by descent with the Dukes of Leuchtenberg, Seeon-Seebruck, until 1935
Leuchtenberg sale (‘Bibliothèque Eugène de Beauharnais. Bibliothèque des Ducs de Leuchtenberg’), Zurich, Braus-Riggenbach and Ulrico Hoepli, 23-24 May 1935, lot 82 (bt. Weyhe for 49,000 Swiss francs)
Erhard Weyhe, New York
Thence by descent to a private family trust until 1985
Anonymous sale (‘Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s Les Liliacées: The Empress Josephine’s Copy with the Original Drawings and the Text on Vellum. The Property of a Private Trust’), New York, Sotheby's, 20 November 1985, this watercolour as lot 473 (the entire group sold for $5,500,000)
W. Graham Arader, New York
The present sheet later acquired by a private collection.