Traité des arbres fruitiers
First edition of the most important 18th-century treatise dedicated to fruit trees, adorned with 181 superb full-page engravings.
Sumptuous copy in contemporary red morocco.
2 large quarto volumes: I/ 1 frontispiece, (2) leaves, xxix pp., (2) pp., (1) blank p., 337 pp., 62 full-page engravings.; II/ (2) leaves, 280 pp., 118 full-page engravings.
Contemporary red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, spine with raised bands decorated in grotesque style, title and volume labels in green morocco, decorated board edges, gilt inner roll, gilt edges. Contemporary binding.
325 x 242 mm.
Duhamel du Monceau, Henri-Louis. Treatise on Fruit Trees; containing their illustration, description, cultivation, etc.
Paris, Saillant & Desaint, 1768.
First edition of one of the most beautiful French botanical books of the 18th century, dedicated by Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1782) to fruit trees.
Nissen, 550; Great Flower books, p. 55; Dunthorne 109; Stafleu 1546; Pritzel, 2466; Bib. Plesch 211.
A true encyclopedic spirit, Duhamel joined the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1738 and from that date specialized in forestry production techniques. He had turned his estate at Denainvilliers in the Gâtinais into a true experimental agricultural station.
Written in collaboration with the agronomist René le Berryais, this treatise, one of the botanist’s most important, provides the necessary and essential instructions for gardeners, and as a complement to his Treatise on Trees and Shrubs Cultivated in France, published in Paris in 1755, it is a fundamental work for the knowledge and cultivation of fruit trees.
“This is an important work, for Duhamel carefully distinguished the ‘species’ of the Naturalists from the ‘varieties’ of the gardeners. The book was long consulted.” Plesch.
The edition, adorned with a very beautiful frontispiece engraved by de Launay after De Sève, presents in the first issue 180 superb full-page engravings finely executed on copper by Martinet, Mesnil... after drawings by Le Berryais, Aubriet, Basseprert, Herisset, and Tardieu.
Combining artistic craftsmanship with attention to scientific detail, these beautiful engravings form a very comprehensive panorama of the fruits cultivated in the mid-18th century.
Magnificent copy, on large paper, of the utmost rarity in contemporary morocco.
