Les Vélins du Roi
Les Vélins du Roi ("The King's Vellums") is a compendium of 6984 plant and animal paintings started in 1631 to document specimens from the royal garden and animal collection. Foremost illustrators such as Nicolas Robert, Pancrace Bessa, Gerard van Spaendonck, Claude Aubriet and Madeleine Françoise Basseporte contributed to the codex through the reigns of Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV, and the codex was finally entrusted in 1793 to the "Museum Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle", where it remains. 

In 1645 Nicolas Robert was invited to the Chateau de Blois by Gaston, Duke of Orléans, brother of King Louis XIII. Gaston founded a botanic garden at Blois and cultivated a wealth of rare plants. The director of the gardens, Scottish botanist Robert Morison, is believed to have inspired Robert to illustrate the resident plants. Following Gaston's death in 1660, the collection of vellums was left to his nephew, Louis XIV, who lodged them at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Robert carried on in the service of the King and continued his plant illustrations. The collection was further enlarged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with works by other renowned artists, such as Pierre-Joseph Redouté. After the French Revolution of 1789, additions to the collection focused largely on wildlife. 

Claude Aubriet (1665-1742), followed Jean Joubert, Nicolas Robert's successor, as painter of the plants in the royal botanical garden. Aubriet’s drawings are meticulously done, matching the standards set by Robert. Aubriet was patronised by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708), a leading French botanist who commissioned him to illustrate his celebrated "Elemens de Botanique", published in Paris in 1694. Two colleagues of de Tournefort, Sebastien Vaillant (1669-1722) and Antoine de Jussieu (1686-1758), also made use of Aubriet's talents to illustrate their works.

In 2016 the firm of "Citadelles & Mazenod" published a 624-page volume depicting 800 of the plates from the collection. 
Q3340748
Nicolas Robert
PER
Q2559115
Pancrace Bessa
PER
Q2523019
Gerard van Spaendonck
PER
Q1096452
Claude Aubriet
PER
Q452289
Madeleine Françoise Basseporte
PER
Q737533
Louis XIII
PER
Q7742
Louis XIV
PER
Q7738
Louis XV
PER
Q213924
codex
Concept
Q838691
"Museum Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle"
ORG
Q4055
Chateau de Blois
LOC
Q644635
Gaston, Duke of Orléans
PER
Q281661
Robert Morison
PER
Q730948
Jardin des Plantes
LOC
Q551638
Pierre-Joseph Redouté
PER
Q6534
French Revolution
EVE
Q312959
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort
Concept
Q737706
Sebastien Vaillant
PER
Q435674
Antoine de Jussieu
PER
Q85776299
Les Vélins du Roi
Concept
6984-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
6984
DATE
1631-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1631
DATE
1793-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1793
DATE
1645-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1645
DATE
1660-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1660
DATE
1789-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1789
DATE
1694-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1694
DATE
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2016
DATE
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1665
NUMBER
-1742^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
-1742
NUMBER
+1656^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1656
NUMBER
-1708^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
-1708
NUMBER
+1669^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1669
NUMBER
-1722^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
-1722
NUMBER
+1686^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1686
NUMBER
-1758^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
-1758
NUMBER
has works in the collection
relative