Iconographie et Histoire Naturelle des Chenilles pour servir de complement a l'Histoire Naturelle des Lepidopteres ou Papillons de France

Paris: Bailliere, 1849. First edition.

92 VERY FINE HAND-COLORED ENGRAVED PLATES OF LARVAE OF FRENCH BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS ON THEIR FOOD PLANTS.

Two hardcover volumes 8 1/2 inches tall, brown cloth spines with marbled paper covered boards, gilt title to spines, bookplate of Robert L Chevalier MD to front paste-downs, Vol. I, 244 pp, 36 hand colored plates; Vol. II, non-paginated, 56 hand colored plates. Corners worn, binding tender but secure, plates bright with occasional browning. Very good in custom archival mylar covers.

PHILOGENE AUGUSTE JOSEPH DUPONCHEL (1774 –1846) was a French soldier and entomologist. He joined the French Army when he was sixteen years old and took part in the campaigns of 1795 and 1796. Retiring from the army, he worked afterwards as a government administrator stationed in Paris. He was forced to retire again in 1816, aged 42 years, because of his opinions in favor of Napoleon: he then devoted himself to the study of insects. After twelve years of effort, Duponchel finished in 1838 L'Histoire naturelle des lépidoptères de France, co-authored with Jean Baptiste Godart. This work consists of seventeen volumes (including twelve signed by Duponchel), 7600 coloured plates and 500 "boards" (which appear under the title Iconographie des Chenilles or Iconography of the Caterpillars). The volumes were published between 1832 and 1842, and within its pages the authors describe more than four thousand species of butterflies and moths. Duponchel was one of the founders of the Société Entomologique de France and was its first treasurer.

AUGUSTE DUMENIL was a 19th-century French illustrator and engraver known for his detailed, hand-colored steel engravings, particularly for natural history publications.