Beschreibung:

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU, Henri Louis (1700-1782) Traité des arbres fruitiers... Nouvelle édition, augmentée d'un grand nombre d'espèces de fruits obtenus des progrès de la culture, par A. Poiteau et P.J.F. Turpin. Paris: [1807-]1835. 6 volumes, 2° (510 x 330mm). Half-titles. 2 uncoloured plates of the pruning and training of fruit trees, 420 stipple-engraved plates printed in colours and finished by hand, after Poiteau or Turpin, engraved by Allais, Bocourt, Bouquet, Chazal, Gabriel, Giraud, Joyeau, Legrand, Massard, Rodrigue, Victor and others, printed by Langlois. (Light spotting and browning, faint offsetting onto interleaves and text). Contemporary green morocco, gilt, by J.Leighton, covers with gilt ruled borders, spines in six sections lettered in two, others with elaborate floral panels, gilt turn-ins, gilt edges. A FINE LARGE COPY OF 'ONE OF THE FINEST AND RAREST BOOKS ON FRUIT, WITH MANY BEAUTIFUL PLATES' (Dunthorne). The plates and text are arranged by fruits, all of one kind together as listed in the 'Table' in each volume, but the plate numbers are not consecutive since they refer to the order in which the plates were issued in the original 66 parts or 'livraisons'. The plates include 31 depictions of almonds, 22 peaches and nectarines, 9 apricots, 48 plums and greengages, 27 cherries, 9 citrus fruits, 12 grapes, 57 berries of various kinds (raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, gooseberry, red and blackcurrant), 112 pears, and 58 apples. Although described as a new edition of Duhamel's Traité of 1768, this is essentially an independent work, and should be viewed as part of the rich proliferation of great botanical books issued in France in the last decade of the 18th and first two decades of the 19th century. The plates printed by Langlois after watercolours by Antoine Poiteau (1766-1854) and Pierre-Jean-François-Turpin (1775-1840) are particularly fine. Langlois, arguably the greatest exponent of colour-printing, also supervised much of Redouté's work; Poiteau, a pupil of Redouté, trained as a botanist and was employed at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris; Turpin was a self-taught artist who went on to illustrate a number of his own works. In 1646, six years after Turpin's death, the present work was re-issued under the title Pomologie française with Poiteau's name on the title but Turpin's removed from all but 10 of the plates. Dunthorne p.192; Great Flower Books (1990) p.93; Nissen BBI 551; Stafleu and Cowan 1548. (6)