Poiteau’s Pomologie Francaise.. – Four Volumes with 420 Fruit Engravings

These four volumes with 420 stunning fruit engraving is Pomologie Francaise, Recueil des plus beaux fruits cultivés en France. The work was published in Paris by Langlois et Laclerq in 1846. This was the re-printing under a new title of the 1808 publication of Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau’s 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. Sandra Raphael notes that “from 1807 to 1835 a new edition of Duhamel’s Trait des Arbres frutiers, expanded by Poiteau and Turpin, was published in 72 parts with over 400 new plates. Ten years later, after Turpin’s death, it was reprinted with a new title under the name of Poiteau alone.” The volumes are bound in contemporary green half morocco gilt. The top edge is gilt with other edges uncut.

The work was first published in 1768, but it would be more accurate to view this new edition as its own independent work with the illustrations from Poiteau and Turpin. The work is considered “one of the finest and rares books on fruit, with many beautiful plates.” (Dunthorne) Duhamel authored the work as a practical manual to cultivate and increase consumption of fruit. The work described and illustrated almonds, peaches, nectarines, grapes, many kinds of berries, pears, and apples.

The engravings were completed by Victor, Bouquet, Gabriel, Giraud, and others. They were printed by Langlois. Each engraving was printed in color with original hand-finishing. The engravings were completed after orignal illustrations by Antoine Poiteau & Pierre-Jean-Francois Turpin. Antoine Poiteau was a pupil of Pierre Joseph-Redoute and was trained as a botanist. Pierre-Jean-François Turpin was a self-taught artist that published a number of his own works.