Pierre Vallet (c. 1575, Orléans - 1657) was a French botanical artist, engraver and embroidery designer. He worked as a "Brodeur ordinaire du Roy" in the court of Marie de Medicis of Florence, second wife of Henry IV of France. Vallet made botanical illustrations, along with Jean Robin, for the Le Jardin du tres Chrestien Henry IV (1608) with plants from the garden of the Louvre Palace along with exotic curiosities from West Africa and Spain.
Vallet was born in Orleans and moved to Paris where he worked as an embroiderer under the patronage of Marie de Médici of Florence (1575-1642), the second wife of Henry IV (1553-1610). Records suggest that there was a father and son who went by the name of Pierre Vallet and that the son became more well known.[1] He used floral motifs in his work and produced the Le Jardin du très Chrestien Henry IV ('The Garden of the most Christian Henry IV') in 1608 which was meant to guide embroidery works. The second edition explicitly noted that the book was made for “those who wish to paint or illuminate, embroider or make tapestries on the basis of this present book.”[2] The third edition in 1650 went by the title of Hortus regius. The book became a source for floral motifs in textile designs during the seventeenth century. Copies of his works were made by Johann Theodor de Bry in '
Vallet also illustrated Jacques-Philippe Cornut's Canadensium plantarum published in 1635, and Les Adventures Amoureuse de Theagenes et Chariclée Sommairement Discrète et Representee par Figures (Gabriel Tavernier, Paris, 1613),the hero and heroine of an erotic 4th century romance in Greek by Heliodorus, Bishop of Trikka.