Two Medlars and Wild Plants by a Stream

Jean-Louis Prévost was a French botanical and still-life painter from a family of artists, trained at the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres under it's director Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806). Renowned for his precise botanical watercolours, he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salons and contributed to major projects documenting plants and flowers for aristocratic patrons and decorative designers.

This sheet is characteristic of Prévost’s refined and intensely observant draughtsmanship. Executed with remarkable precision, the composition captures the subtle textures and ephemeral details of the natural world - from glistening drops of dew upon leaves and petals to the minute presence of a beetle upon a curling tendril.