Pierre Jean François Turpin
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Pierre Jean François Turpin (1775-1840) was a French botanist and illustrator. He is considered one of the greatest floral and botanical illustrators during the Napoleonic Era and afterwards. As an artist, Turpin was largely self-taught.
In 1794 Turpin was stationed in Haiti as a member of the French Army. Here he met botanist Pierre Antoine Poiteau (1766-1854), with whom he would have a working relationship throughout his career. Through Poiteau, Turpin learned botany, and he created many botanical field drawings that became a basis of further study when the two men returned to France. Concerning their work in Haiti, they were able to describe around 800 species of plants.
Through his collaboration with Poiteau and other naturalists, Turpin created some of the finest watercolors and illustrations of plants that are known to exist. The following are some of the works in which Turpin contributed his illustrative work:
- He did much of the illustrated work in Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert's (1773-1847) Icones selectae plantarum.
- With Pierre Poiteau, he produced an updated version of Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau's (1700-1782) Traité des arbres fruitiers (Treatise of the Fruit Trees).
- Contributed the illustrative work for Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and Aimé Bonpland's (1773-1858) Plantes Equinoxales (1808).
- Provided the illustrations to Jean Louis Marie Poiret's (1755-1834) Leçons de flore: Cours complet de botanique (1819-1820).
