LA QUINTINYE (Jean de). Instruction pour les jardins fruitie - Lot 298

LA QUINTINYE (Jean de). Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers, avec un Traité des orangers, et des Réflexions sur l'agriculture. Nouvelle édition revüe, corrigée, et augmentée d'une Instruction pour la culture des fleurs. Paris, Par la Compagnie des Libraires Associés, 1756. 2 vols. in-4 of [8], xlviii, [8] 591, [1] pp. 12 engraved plates out of text; [12], 587, [29] pp. Nice bands (at the head of each part) and qqs figures in-t. Marbled calf, ornate ribbed spine, title and appendix pages, red pages (contemporary binding). Some spotting and rubbing, one corner roughly restored. Ink stains on edge of 1st volume, gray stains on 2 pp. in first volume, several small freckles. Missing plate in 2nd volume. Jean de la Quintinye (1626-1688) left the bar to devote himself to gardening. After creating or organizing the gardens or kitchen gardens of the châteaux of Vaux-le-Vicomte for Fouquet, Chantilly for the Grand Condé, Rambouillet for the Duc de Montausier, Choisy-le-Roy for Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Sceaux for Colbert, he intervened in the former kitchen garden of Louis XIII at Versailles and was appointed by Louis XIV "director of the fruit and kitchen gardens of all the royal houses". He is best known for his work on the acclimatization of fragile species (fig trees, melons), out-of-season fruit and vegetable production (lettuces in January, strawberries in March, etc.), one of the first systems of cultivation under glass frames and cloches, the technique of espalier cultivation of fruit trees, etc. etc. Expert: Mrs. Elvire POULAIN-MARQUIS