01/05/2026
Lot 328 in Moorabool’s auction on Saturday 2nd May is a remarkable pair of large botanical sketches, painted by an eccentric member of the French aristocracy in the 1780’s: the Marquis François Palamède de Suffren (1753–1824), French nobleman and botanist, member of the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino (elected 1803); of the distinguished Suffren de Saint Tropez family of Salon-de-Provence; participant in the Battle of Grenada, 1779, as enseigne de vaisseau aboard the Fantasque — a Caribbean campaign that brought him into direct contact with the tropical flora depicted.
The artist is documented as a prolific botanical draughtsman; the astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach recorded seeing over 150 magnificent colour drawings of Provençal fig varieties at Suffren’s home c.1810, a body of work whose present location remains unknown. These two sheets may be among the very few surviving original graphic works attributable to him not in European collections. Lot 328, Geelong
