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RARE COLLECTION OF WORKS ON WATER SANITATION
[AMY, Joseph]. Nouvelles fontaines domestiques. Premiere édition. Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard Antoine Boudet, 1750.
WITH: Filtroirs militaires marins et domestiques. Paris, Antoine Boudet, n.d.
WITH: Instruction générale & sommaire, pour la conduite des Nouvelles Fontaines, Paris, Antoine Boudet, n.d.
WITH: AMY, [Joseph]. Nouvelles fontaines filtrantes... pour la santé des armées du roi, Sur Mer & sur Terre, & du Public. Paris, Antoine Boudet, 1752.
WITH: AMY, [Joseph]. Suite du livre intitulé nouvelles fontaines filtrantes. Paris, Antoine Boudet, 1754.
WITH: BERTHIER. Projet d'une pompe publicque pour la ville de Paris. [Paris], de l'Imprimerie Chardon, [after 1769].
4 works and 2 tracts in 1 volume. 12mo. With 16 folding plates (2 double) , 13 woodcut and 3 engraved, 3 full-page woodcut plates, 7 woodcuts in text, 9 of these illustrations are hand-coloured. Contemporary mottled calf, spine with gilt compartments with morocco label.
| Orders and Information | € 12500 |
A very rare collection of four works and two tracts on sanitation of water fountains for domestic and military use all in first edition. Joseph Amy was born towards the end of the seventeenth century and died in 1760 (NBG ). According to the title-pages of Nouvelles fontaines filtrantes and Suite , he was "avocat au parlement d'Aix." In the present collection, he strongly argues for improved sanitary conditions of water supply and the use of safe materials in the mid eighteenth century. He discusses water filters, copper, iron, and leaden vessels and tubes, constructions for healthy fountains as drinkwater reservoirs, fountains for domestic and for military use, and warns against the use of copper vessels, which leads to copper poisoning. The illustrations show constructions for different types of fountains. The three engravings are humorous illustrations of the inevitabilities of the rule of the "Copper Empire," where subjects die prematurely.
The Nouvelles fontaines domestiques - a second edition appeared in 1750 - contains the main part of the book ((2), 61, (9) pp), followed by Question de medicin (1-72 pp), Avis au public (1-24 pp), and Second avis au public (1-48 pp). It was first published under the title Observations expérimentales sur les eaux des rivières de Seine, de Marne, d'Arcueil et de Puits te sur les filtres et les vaisseaux... les propres à purfier et à conserver l'eau (Paris, Morel le jeune, 1749). The Avis au public and the Second avis au public had been published separately without place or year. In our copy, Second avis au public has been bound before the title-page of Nouvelles fontaines domestiques . In its turn, it is preceded by a coloured frontispiece, depicting Heracles decapitating the multi-headed monster Hydra. This frontispiece may originally not belong to the work but is quite appropriate in view of its contents. After the title-page of the Nouvelles fontaines domestiques , there follow two leaves pp. 1-2 and 7-8 from the second part of Nouvelles Fontaines Filtrantes . They have been mistakenly bound in here, and are superfluous, because both leaves are also found in their appropriate place. The two folding tracts are bound in after Nouvelles fontaines domestiques . Filtroirs militaires marins et domestiques (Blake, p. 146) is a summary of Amy's work with a recommendation for interested readers to buy the book itself. Instruction générale... (Blake, p. 230) is a list with addresses where approved vessels can be bought. Nouvelles fontaines filtrantes (viii, 72; 1-46 pp) and Suite (lxxxii, 332, (4) pp) follow. Two of the illustrations of the first work are repeated in the second. The volume concludes with Projet d'une pompe publique pour la ville de Paris , without the title-page (3-8 pp). We did not find a bibliographical reference. It is rare to find the three main works of Amy together in on volume. The NUC (NA 0289951-2, lists two copies with Extrait du livre intitulé "Nouvelles fontaines domestiques", Nouvelles fontaines filtrantes and Suite , the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris lists several of the individual titles, but no volume with present amount of works.
Twice right lower corner torn off, not affecting text; title-page of Berthier's work lacking; binding rubbed. Good copy of these very rare works.
