Noisette, Louis Claude

Le Jardin fruitier. Paris: Audot, [1813]–1821



3 volumes, 4to (11 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.; 286 x 223 mm). 90 engraved plates (the grapes and espalier and pruning tool plates by Theodor Susémihl, half titles in all volumes, errata leaf in vol. 2; light scattered foxing, but overall a very bright, clean copy. Contemporary marbled boards, spines lettered gilt, blue-green endpapers; extremities rather rubbed, some minor losses to spines.

Stellan & Martha Vennersten (bookplate)

Nissen, BBI 1450; Raphael, Oak Spring Pomona 43; Pritzel 6733

First edition. Noisette followed in the footsteps of his father and became a gardener and nurseryman. In 1795 he held the stewardship of the gardens and greenhouses of the Val de Grâce hospital in Paris and later oversaw the Hungarian plantations of Prince Esterhazy. Returning to France, he established a large nursery first at Fontenay-les-Roses and finally at Montrouge. With the help of his brother Philippe, who had been employed as a nurseryman in South Carolina for several years, Noisette was responsible for introducing many new North American plants to France.

Le Jardin fruitier, issued in fifteen parts betwen 1813 and 1821, is devoted to the cultivation and training of fruit trees with advice on planting seeds, grafting, and the training and shaping trees for the most productive results. With the exception of the quince, nut, and grape plates, the unsigned fruit plates are in the main copied from those in Duhamel's Traité des arbres fruitiers (1768) after drawings by René Le Berryais, Magdeleine Basseporte, and Claude Aubriet.  The adaptations are frequently reversed and printed four to a page. Nissen attributes Pancrace Bessa to the drawings in the first edition of Noisette's work, but Raphael conjectures that he was more likely responsible for adapting the Duhamel drawings.