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an old book sitting on top of a white table next to a white wallan old book with a bunch of pictures of people working on a boatan open book with a picture of a coat of arms on itan old map of a garden with a lot of trees in itan old book sitting on top of a white surfacean open book with a black and white image of the title of a poeman old book with writing on it sitting on a tablean open book with a black and white title on it
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255 - PRÉFONTAINE (Jean-Antoine Brûletout de). A Rustic House, for…
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Estimate €800 - €1,000
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Description
PRÉFONTAINE (Jean-Antoine Brûletout de). A Rustic House, for the use of the inhabitants of that part of equatorial France known as Cayenne. - [LA SALLE DE L'ÉTANG (Simon-Philibert de)]. Galibi Dictionary… preceded by an essay on grammar. A rare account of colonial French Guiana: Préfontaine’s Maison Rustique and La Salle de l’Étang’s Dictionnaire galibi (1763), between practical knowledge and a colonial project doomed to failure. Paris, published by Cl. J. B. Bauche, 1763. 2 parts in one in-8 volume (200 x 130 mm), marbled tan calfskin, ribbed spine decorated with a morocco patch and pomegranate-shaped panels with gilt metal fittings, red edges. (Contemporary binding). 8 pp. (catalogue), 3 unnumbered folios. 211 pp. 2 unnumbered folios; xvi, 24 pp., 126 pp. 1 unnumbered folio. Spine slightly cracked. Three small ink spots on the edge, of no consequence. First and only edition of this rare manual for the settlers of French Guiana. Illustrated with 7 folding plates engraved on copper by Chalmandrier. The author was commander of this colony. He devotes numerous passages to the cultivation and preparation of food (cassava, roots, herbs and vegetables, fruit, poultry, hunting, fishing…), drinks (banana wine, yam, mahogany…), and the production of cocoa, coffee, sugar, as well as cotton and indigo. Contains a substantial chapter on slaves and indigenous peoples. At the end, there is a comprehensive dictionary of trees and plants detailing their culinary and medicinal uses. The second part of the volume contains a remarkable French-Galibi and Galibi-French dictionary in its original edition, accompanied by a grammatical essay on this language spoken by the Kalinagos, a Caribbean ethnic group inhabiting southern Venezuela, French Guiana and northern Brazil. Préfontaine, the author of the first part, was commander of the northern part of French Guiana granted to the Duke of Choiseul for the establishment of the colony of Kourou. He dedicated the work to Choiseul, chief minister to Louis XV and Minister of War and the Navy, who at the time wished to establish a new settlement colony in French Guiana, in order to reaffirm France’s position in the Americas, which had been undermined in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris. This episode is known as the ‘Disaster of Kourou’: some fifteen thousand French settlers (mostly from Alsace and Lorraine) were sent to the savannahs of French Guiana. The colonial project, poorly prepared and carried out in a haphazard manner, was a total failure: the settlers, a number of whom were already ill on the overcrowded ship, disembarked at Kourou in the middle of the wet season and in the marshes; twelve thousand died of disease within the year and only around sixty families were able to take refuge on a neighbouring archipelago, christened the Îles du Salut for the occasion, before returning to France. Provenance: handwritten bookplate of ‘Habault’. A fine copy of this rare work.
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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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