Pierre-Joseph Redouté  (Belgian, 1759-1840)
Watercolor for plate 421 (tas 420): “Soap Plant”   Scilla pomeridiana
Prepared for Les Liliacées ca. 1802-1816
Watercolor and graphite on vellum
Completed: ca. 1802-1816
Inventory no. AP02064

Depicted as Scilla pomeridiana in Les Liliacées and known today as Chlorogalum pomeridianum (soap plant or amole), this North American plant of the family Asparagaceae is one of the more utilitarian members of the lily order. Indigenous peoples of California used its large bulbs, covered in fibrous brown outer layers, for multiple purposes: the saponin-rich flesh was a soap and fish poison, the fibers were used for brushes, and the roasted bulbs were eaten as food.

Native to the southwestern United States, from Josephine County in Oregon south to San Diego County in California, the soap plant was among the early California plants to reach European collections. Its American western provenance reflected the expansion of botanical collecting along the Pacific coast of North America in the early nineteenth century, stimulated by reports from the Spanish California missions and later by American exploration of the Pacific Northwest.

The soap plant’s utilitarian indigenous uses interested French botanists and chemists, who systematically investigated the industrial and pharmaceutical potential of American plants. The saponins in the bulb were of particular interest: the search for plant-based detergents and fish stupefacients was an active area of French colonial and scientific inquiry in the early nineteenth century. Its inclusion in Josephine’s collection as a botanical curiosity from the Pacific coast of North America reflects her garden’s ambition to represent the full spectrum of the world’s useful and interesting plants.

Please feel free to contact us with questions by phone at 215.735.8811,
or by email at loricohen@aradergalleries.com