From 1778 and ils first catalogue onwards, the Vilmorin-Andrieux printing house published its extraordinary Albums for which it employed some fifteen painters trained in naturalist drawing at the Jardin des Plantes. Published between 1851 and 1861, this large folio of 28 plates of hardy flowers, vegetables and forage plants was due to the fine and precise tine of the watercolourist Élisa-Honorine Champin (circa 1807-1871), seconded by the less well-known Josephine Coutance..