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Selected works from the
38th Annual Fine Arts Exhibition
Jul/Aug 2012
MANAMA
CAPITAL
OF
ARAB
CULTURE
2012
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Books
Album Vilmorin.
The Vegetable Garden
Werner Dressendörfer
Hardcover, 11.7 x 16.5 in
136 pages
Top of FormISBN 978-3-8365-3599-1
Multilingual Edition: English, French,
German
Published by TASCHEN
An art book for food lovers

Mouthwatering illustrations of 19th century French garden
vegetables
The French company Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie arose in the 18th
century from the collaboration between Philippe Victoire de
Vilmorin-a grain and plant merchant and connoisseur-and his
father-in-law, Pierre Andrieux, Botanist to the King. The
Vilmorins, though only producers and merchants on the Paris
market, contributed enormously to the botanical and agronomic
knowledge of their time. Their first catalog, comprising all kinds
of seeds for kitchen-garden vegetables-including legumes,
salad plants, flower seeds and bulbs-appeared in 1766. It was
followed by a series of Publications périodiques in which the
quality of the botanical and horticultural information was equaled
only by the illustrations. By the mid-19th century, the firm had
become the most important seed company in the world-active in
production, trade, and scientific advances, thanks largely to
Louis de Vilmorin's crucial research into selection and heredity
in the 1850s.

At the height of its international renown, the company published
its splendidAlbum Vilmorin. Les Plantes potagères (The
Vegetable Garden, 1850-1895) featuring 46 magnificent color
plates. The Vilmorins employed some 15 painters to create this
work of agro-botanic iconography; most had trained as artist-
naturalists at the Jardin des Plantes, the former Royal Gardens,
including Elisa Champin, who painted a large number of the
finest plates. These illustrations-reproduced here with exquisite
care and accuracy-transcend mere artistic interest, beautiful as
they are; they are also a valuable resource for anyone
researching cultivarietal evolution, and old varieties of fruits and
vegetables.
The author:
Werner Dressendörfer  is a pharmaceutical historian and
academic librarian. He teaches at the University of Erlangen-
Nuremberg, where he is an honorary professor. His particular
spheres of interest are the history of the Early Modern herbal, the
cultural history of useful and medicinal plants, and plant
symbolism in art. He has published extensively on
pharmaceutical and botanical history.