Les Roses de Rimbaud – Night

Inspiration

Continuing to trace the path of preserving a precious and rare heritage of Decorative Arts, we have chosen to restore and honor a gouache, from the opulent history of the French textile industry of the 19th century.

This very beautiful grisaille from 1881, from the archives of the Société Française des Papiers Peints (ESSEF), comes in shades of gray of beautiful, elegant and florid roses.

Initially used as a preparatory step, the grisaille technique gains its nobility here, bringing with its subtle grays a depth and a winter light to each flower.

We also pay tribute, thanks to this archive reworked by us, to the city of Lyon, which became Capital of the Rose, and particularly to the Rose called Arthur Rimbaud. Blooming from spring to the first frost, this flower allows us to imagine, on a winter morning in 1881, a stroll in the footsteps of the young poet aged then 27, treading the meanders of the flower gardens of our city to find the inspiration from the poem Flowers in the Illuminations .

The history of the rose and of Lyon develops after 1805, at the end of the trip of Napoleon and the Empress Joséphine, who, to show the satisfaction and pleasure felt during her stay,  gave the city rose plants from his own garden in Malmaison. Planted in the plant garden then on the slopes of the Croix Rousse and most of them coming from all over the world, these plants will allow the development of new species thanks to hybridization. Lyon's rose growers stood out for their audacity and their know-how and made the city the world center of rose production.

Nourished by these models on the motif, the painters of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Lyon and in particular those of the flower class, some specializing in the rose and called the Rosiers, will find there an obvious inspiration and the Silkies a inexhaustible repertoire to adorn fabrics made at Croix-Rousse.