Franse roos 1799 - 1801

Jean Godefroy captured this "Franse Roos" with delicate lines in an etching. Roses, since ancient times, have represented love, beauty, and secrets—a language of flowers that speaks volumes. Consider Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," where roses fall around the goddess, emblems of beauty and earthly love born from the seafoam. Yet, these symbols shift. A white rose, once a symbol of purity, can become a token of remembrance. The red rose? Passion, certainly, but also sacrifice and blood. The rose’s thorns, ever present, remind us that beauty and pleasure are intertwined with pain and caution, a duality that resonates deeply within our collective psyche, a subconscious recognition of life's bittersweet dance. The rose, like a recurring dream, continues to bloom across cultures, each time carrying echoes of its past, its thorns and petals forever intertwined in our memory.