Le Jardin Fruitier, contenant l'histoire, la description, la culture et les usages des arbres fruitiers, des fraisiers, et des meilleures espèces de vignes qui se trouvent en Europ by NOISETTE, Louis-Claude (1772-1849) - 1821

Paris: Audot, 1821. 2 volumes, 4to. (11 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches). [4], 176; [2], 95, [1]pp., including the vol. 2 title which is here bound in with the plates. 90 hand colored engraved plates (numbered 1-77, plus 9, 10 and 52 bis, and I-X [one folding]). With a contemporary 2pp. letterpress handbill by a Valence, France horticulturalist, listing various species of fruits with their dates of maturity, laid in. Contemporary tree calf, covers bordered in gilt, flat spines decoratively tooled in gilt, red morocco labels. Provenance: Mr. De Chazotte (lettered in gilt on the spine, signature on the half title and printed label on the title); Pierpaolo Vaccarino (collection stamp on the half title). A lovely set of the first edition of a noted French work on fruit trees, with beautifully hand colored plates. "Louis Noisette was the son of a gardener and followed the same occupation in 1795, after his military service, when he took charge of the gardens and greenhouses of the Val de Grace hospital in Paris. Three years later he was renting land for his own nursery garden in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. Once his garden was established he travelled to Hungary with Prince Esterhazy, furnishing the Prince's new plantations there. As Noisette's reputation and his nursery's stock both grew he started a larger garden for trees and fruit at Fontenay-les-Roses, before moving to Montrouge in 1836. The Noisette nursery is credited with the introduction to France of many new North American plants, a specialty that must have been helped by Louis's brother Philippem who was for some years a nurseryman in Charleston, South Carolina ... Although Louis Noisette wrote or contributed to several other gardening books, Le Jardin Fruitier, first published in fifteen parts from 1813-1821, is devoted to a subject in which the French had long been leaders, the cultivation and training of fruit trees. The history, culture and uses of all the fruits are described, with advice on cultivation beginning with planting seeds, before going on to grafting and other methods of training and shaping trees for the best results" (Oak Spring Pomona). The vast majority of the beautifully engraved and hand colored plates are after the 1768 first edition of Duhamel's Traite des Arbres Fruitiers . A second edition of Noisette's work would be published in twenty-six parts between 1832 and 1839, with the plates by Bessa, with each figure from the first edition on separate plates. Raphael, Oak Spring Pomona 43; Nissen, BBI 1450; Pritzel 6733.