Duhamel du Monceau, Henri-Louis

Engraved title-page in vol. 1 with a large allegorical vignette, after Percier and Thibaud by Pillement and Née, depicting Agriculture seated in a wooded grove beside a stream holding a figure of Nature in her hand, letterpress half-title with explication of the vignette on its verso, letterpress title-pages with woodcut publisher's monogram and half-titles in vols. 2–7, bound at the end of vol. 7 is a four-page nursery catalogue, with a one-page supplement of hothouse plants, both dated 1810 ("Catalogue des principaux arbres, arbustes et autres plantes, tant indigênes qu'exotiques. Cultivés dans les Jardins et Pépinières du Sieur Audibert"). Illustration: 498 engraved plates: 496 stipple engravings printed in color and finished by hand after Pierre Joseph Redouté (306) and Pancrace Bessa (190; 3 of which are after original sketches of date palms done in Egypt by Henri Joseph Redouté ) by Gabriel, Lemaire, Jarry, Mlle. Brenet, Mlle. Janinet, Dubreuil, and some 45 others, 2 uncolored and unsigned plates of olive presses, a few plates on blue paper.

7 volumes, folio (16 7/8 x 10 3/8 in.; 427 x 263 mm, uncut). Binding: Nineteenth-century French maroon morocco over marbled boards, spines gilt in six compartments, contrasting marbled endpapers, pink silk ribbon-marker in each volume. Provenance: Bibliotheca Majoirus Seminarii Constantiensis (bookplate on rear pastedown of vol. 6, stamp on first text leaf of vols. 1–4 and on verso of first plate of vols. 5–7).



Plate 2.67 lightly foxed, about 30 lightly browned plates scattered throughout the volumes, principally in vol. 3, but withal a very clean, bright set. Extremities of bindings a bit rubbed, corners bumped, most hinges neatly repaired, a few (particularly 1, 2, & 6) just cracking.



 

Bunyard, p. 242; Cleveland Collections 662; De Belder sale 111; Dunthorne 243; Great Flower Books, p. 91; Hunt, Redoutéana 14 & p. 18; Lack 47; Nissen 549; An Oak Spring Pomona 30; An Oak Spring Sylva 3; Plesch sale 230; Pritzel 2470; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 1547; Stock 1669

Plate 2.67 lightly foxed, about 30 lightly browned plates scattered throughout the volumes , but withal a very clean, bright set. Extremities of bindings a bit rubbed, corners bumped, most hinges neatly repaired, a few (particularly 1, 2, & 6) just cracking.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A fine, tall and uncut copy of the "Nouveau Duhamel," the apotheosis of French fruit books and "one of the basic works for western European dendrological botany" (Hunt). While the present work shares a title with a 1755 monograph by Duhamel du Monceau and is variously styled as a second or new edition, it is essentially independent of the earlier edition in both plates and text. The beautiful plates are after drawings by Pierre Joseph Redouté and Pancrace Bessa, executed by an army of engravers (the 1755 edition was illustrated with woodblocks cut nearly two centuries earlier); the new text was written by six noted botanists, including a significant contribution to the literature of roses by J. A. L. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps.

Duhamel du Monceau trained in the natural sciences at the Jardin du Roi and became one of the outstanding French botanists of the eighteenth century. His botanical expertise stemmed in the main from observation of his own gardens of trees, shrubs, and exotics, which he cultivated at his estates of Vrigny and Monceau, as well as at his brother's gardens in Denainvilliers. Duhamel du Monceau was largely responsible for introducing "scientific method into pomological descriptions. … [H]e realized that all tree characters must be included … and we therefore have fruits with their own leaves in true character" (Bunyard).

The plates in the Allen set are numbered and distributed in accordance with the Mellon copy. Among the wide variety of trees, shrubs, and fruits illustrated are  birch, willow, conifers, oak, date palms, juniper berries, olives, walnuts, apricots, cherries, figs, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, apples, peaches, plums, pears, grapes, and a range of citrus fruit.