Atlas dessiné de l’« Histoire des champignons comestibles et vénéneux… » de Joseph Roques

Green half-binding with corners, spine with raised-bands decorated with dotted lines, title in gilt lettering on the spine. Binding rubbed. Label of the Derouet stationery shop in Cosne (Nièvres) in the upper left corner, on the back cover. Watercolors and pencil on paper, 24 numbered plates. Bibliography : Unpublished.

Made by Émilie Ducastin, this work testifies to her work as a copyist in the 1860s. Born in Candé in the Maine-et-Loire, this artist participated in the Salon in 1870 where she exhibited a work representing fruits [1]. Trained by Ducastin, Émilie was probably a student of her father, H. Ducastin, with whom she produced this work. Domiciled at "70 rue et île Saint-Louis" in the 1870 Salon booklet, she resided at "12 rue Saint-Louis-l'Île" in 1888 according to the Annuaire de l'association des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, architectes, graveurs et dessinateurs [2]. 2] Emilie Ducastin was also a member of the association from 1879. Unpublished, this drawn atlas is undoubtedly a work of youth where the artist and his father copied the plates engraved on steel by Gabriel, according to compositions of Joseph Bordes and Édouard Hocquart, for the History of the edible and poisonous mushrooms of Joseph Roques.

[1] Explanation of the works of painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving, and lithography of living artists exhibited at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris, Charles de Mourgues Frères, 1870, p. 115, n° 900.
[2] See Annuaire de l'Association des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, architectes, graveurs et dessinateurs, Paris, Siège de l'association, 25 rue Bergère, 1888, p. 113.