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an open book with a black and white title on itan old book sitting on top of a white table next to a white wallan old book sitting on top of a wooden table next to a white wallan open book with a black and white title on itan open book with a picture of a cat on itan open book with a picture of a cat on itan open book with a picture of a bird on itan open book with a picture of a horse on itan open book with a page in it that has writing on itan old book with a black and white text on it
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135 - [GASTRONOMY] [HENNEQUIN, Nicolas-François-Gabriel, Viscount …
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Estimate €800 - €1,200
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Description
[GASTRONOMY] [HENNEQUIN, Nicolas-François-Gabriel, Viscount of Curel and Frenel (1739–1824), attributed to]. A Cook’s Handbook, or The Art of Tantalising the Palate. By a society of gourmets. Famous gastronomic dictionary shunned for its daring subtitle. Nancy, Vincenot, undated [relay label concealing the Metz address: C.M.B. Antoine, 1811]. Volume in-8 (213 x 130 mm), olive half-basane, smooth spine decorated with gilt metal. 428 pages. Leather slightly faded, scuffed at the bottom of the first joint and on the headbands. The top corners of the first 10 or so leaves are slightly dog-eared. Published anonymously in 1811, this work, organised in the form of a dictionary, is one of the very first French cookery books published in Metz. Its subtitle, L'Art d'irriter la gueule, did not bring it the success hoped for and, the very following year, the publisher put it back on sale with a new title page, bearing the shared address of Antoine in Metz and Belin in Paris. The subtitle had become ‘A collection of methods on the art of cooking, for the use of gourmets who are not wealthy’ (‘ We have changed the second title of this work to please those who consent to having their appetite whetted, but not their mouths irritated—which we have impertinently named ‘mouth’…”, Notice). These precautions had no effect on sales and, in 1835, the unsold stock reappeared once more, unchanged in text but bearing not only a new title but also a new author: The New Royal Cook… based on Messrs Carême, Brillat-Savarin, Albert… by Mr Bauvillers (Paris, Camuzeaux, 1835). Vicaire, who attributes the work to Bauvilliers, explains in a lengthy note that the latter is a pseudonym, intended to play on the homophony with the famous restaurateur Antoine Beauvilliers. The Manuel de la cuisine is in fact attributed to Chevalier Nicolas-François-Gabriel Hennequin, Viscount of Curel and Frenel, Grand Luvetier of the Court of Lorraine and Director of the Fortifications of Metz, as mentioned in the catalogue *La Gastronomie* published in 1983 by the Metz Library for the exhibition of the Mutelet Collection (no. 174). Cagle, 65 (in a note); Oberlé, 174; Vicaire, 75. A fine, fresh and clean copy.
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About the sale Fine antique and collectible books, manuscripts and modern illustrated works
Auction location
Auction time 06/29/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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