Histoire naturelle, agricole et économique du maïs
Paris: Madame Huzard; Turin: Bocca, 1836. First edition.
Folio (21” x 13 ¾”, 535mm x 351mm): 1-32 4-462 [$1 signed]. 92 leaves, pp. [2] (half-title, blank), 1-5 (title, blank, dedication, blank, preface) 6-181, [1] (imprint). With 20 engraved plates (I-V, Vbis, VI-XIX), of which 15 are stipple-engraved plates printed in color à la poupée and finished by hand.
Bound in contemporary half straight-grained morocco over marbled boards. On the spine, five pairs of raised bands. Author and title gilt to the second panel. All edges of the text-block untrimmed.
Rubbed at the extremities, with a little wear in patches. The half-title sometime creased vertically. Foxing throughout, mostly marginal and mostly confined to the text.
Maize — Zea mays — which is called corn in American English (although historically “corn” in English has referred to any small particle of grain) is perhaps the most important food crop from the Columbian Exchange. First cultivated in Mexico, it is now second only to rice among plants cultivated globally (exceeding wheat, soy and potatoes). Its introduction to Europe and eventually to Africa and Asia reshaped the way people ate and eat, from polenta in Italy to animal feed in Australia.
Matthieu Bonafous (1793–1852) wrote this definitive account of maize as industrialization allowed for its cultivation on a global scale. Darwin, for instance, praises the work for its completeness as well as its accuracy. The volume also has the distinction of containing the last published scientific illustration of Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), the “Redouté of flowers,” as plate Vbis: “Zea Cryptosperma;” the other fourteen are by Angelica Bottione-Rossi (or Rossi-Bottione). The volume is useful as well as decorative; the uncolored engravings depict systems for processing and storage, and the final two colored plates depict the threats to corn, including corn smut (huitlacoche) as well as enemy insects.
Hunt, Redoutéana 23; Nissen, BBI 198; Pritzel 966; Sitwell, Great Flower Books p. 79.
Item #JLR0712
Price: $13,000