Alfred Riocreux

Alfred Riocreux (Sèvres, 1820 – Paris, 1912) was a French scientific illustrator, regarded by his contemporaries as one of the most distinguished botanical artists of his day. His reputation rests on the precision of his plates, which served several botanists in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The son of Denis-Désiré Riocreux, a porcelain painter at the Sèvres manufactory and one of Pierre-Joseph Redouté's last pupils, he received his first training in drawing and painting from his father. He also worked at the Sèvres factory, and his botanical drawings were shown at the Paris Salon in 1837, 1838 and 1855.

His involvement with botany deepened through Adolphe Théodore Brongniart, who probably introduced him to the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, where he befriended Joseph Decaisne and was in turn introduced to Gustave Thuret. He illustrated the nine volumes of Le Jardin Fruitier du Muséum and works by Thuret, Hemsley and Raoul. Édouard André chose him to arrange the engravings for C.S. Sargent's Silva of North America, and from Paris he supervised the six hundred plates drawn by Charles Edward Faxon. He was among the first to use the microscope for botanical dissections. Examples of his work survive at Kew, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Arnold Arboretum.