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Unlike the daffodil, lily of the valley and forget-me-not, the water lily – though found growing wild in Europe – remains relatively exotic. All it takes, however, is a sluggish stream, a modest pond or some other slightly muddy standing water, and up it pops, strange and magnificent, with that broad, corolla-like leaf, which is to its flower what the frame is to a painting.
Perhaps it was Claude Monet’s paintings that made many of us look at these flowers more closely. In 2027, at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris – a building designed specifically for them – we will celebrate the centenary of the eight gigantic paintings of water lilies by the artist, who produced 300 works on the subject between 1895 and 1926. Yet until the arrival of the botanist Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac, the ‘subject’ of these paintings did not yet exist in such variety, as all water lilies in Europe had been white.
When Claude Monet settled in Giverny in 1883 with his wife and children, his paintings were selling quite well. He created flower beds, which he then began to paint. A few years later, he acquired a flooded meadow, diverted a small stream and began a water garden spanned with a bridge in the Japanese style; indeed, it could well have been inspired by the numerous woodblock prints he displayed in his kitchen. In this pond, he experimented with all manner of aquatic plants, many of which came from a particular nursery located in the Southwest, 240 kilometres from Bordeaux and 150 kilometres from Toulouse…
Joseph Bory de Latour-Marliac, born in 1830 into a family of landowners in Granges-sur-Lot, studied law in Paris in order to become a solicitor before returning home. Switching to horticulture, in 1875 he established a bamboo nursery, some of whose plants came from Japan, and it quickly became a success. Later, he developed a passionate interest in water lilies and devoted almost two decades of his life to cross-breeding wild, white plants with hybrids from elsewhere, often from America.
It was no easy task: many of these hybrids were both fragile and sterile, but others thrived, creating a rare, desirable and even famous plant, one that people talked about, even if it remained a niche interest. From 1881 to 1891, Latour-Marliac’s sales skewed 95 per cent bamboo to 5 per cent water lilies, but Joseph held his ground and, from 1887 onwards, frequently discussed his coloured hybrids with the English botanist William Robinson, who edited The Garden, a leading magazine that supported him.
Still going strong, the nursery itself is spectacularly original, with display ponds made of brick and mortar in whimsical geometric shapes framed by round basins that are actually Toulouse cassoulet dishes. No-one knows who could possibly have given the owner this idea.
Joseph was a man of the world, cultured and passionate about art and literature. A monarchist and a man of faith, he married an aristocrat. Based in Bordeaux, they lived a lavish lifestyle, travelling extensively and cultivating a wealthy clientele likely to own estates, such as the Noailles, the Rothschilds and, in Britain, the clients of Gertrude Jekyll, the garden designer at Luytens’s Munstead House. They also acquired the records of all European châtelains and named their specimens after prominent figures in society. Like Monet, Joseph was a highly ambitious social climber. At the 1889 World’s Fair, when Parisians were reacting to the Eiffel Tower, he sensed that his time had come: finally ready to showcase his revolutionary hybrids, he indeed went on to win every prize.
Monet thus discovered water lilies in shades of yellow, orange, deep dark red, pale pink, fuchsia, and even blue. He was absolutely thrilled, as attested by the invoices preserved by botanists. He particularly appreciated the Nymphea ‘Atropurpurea’ for its dark-red hue, ‘Nelumbium’ for its sweet scent, ‘Arethusa’ for its soft pink colour, and placed the ‘William Falconer’ in the shade of his willows.
Joseph created 350 varieties, and Monet, who adored colour, painted them for over 30 years, almost until his death. However, while the painter owed a great deal to the Latour-Marliac nursery, it is Monet who gave the plant its artistic cachet. Very protective of his coloured water lilies, especially at the start, the painter only revealed his water garden sparingly, at most to Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau or his friend Gustave Caillebotte, so keen was he to keep this plant to himself – one that ‘everyone now wants’.
On the death of Joseph Bory de Latour-Marliac in 1911, his family took over the nursery for a time, until it eventually came into the possession of Robert Sheldon, who acquired the business in 2007. This Franco-American entrepreneur, who gained his PhD at Sciences Po, divides his time between Paris and the Southwest. As a young boy, by a twist of fate, he was transfixed by his family’s small pond with frogs and aquatic plants in New Hampshire, buying his first water lilies at the age of 13 at a Maryland nursery.
The water lily has never subsequently fallen out of vogue. For its autumn/winter 2027 haute couture collection, Christian Dior partnered with Latour-Marliac to design artificial water lilies, which floated in the Tuileries pond below a greenhouse-inspired runway, just a stone’s throw from the Nymphéas on display at l’Orangerie. With jewelled water lilies wrapped around their necks or on their shoes – just as the Egyptian deity Nefertem had worn them as a crown – the models paraded above the pool, showcasing in 2026 the glamour of this strange and inspiring plant, which once again heralds the fashion of the day.
Latour-Marliac. Visit shop.latour-marliac.com
