Oct 14, 2021 - Sale 2582
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Sale 2582 - Lot 174

Price Realized: $ 2,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 900
Bourgeois [aka] Boursier, Louise (1563-1636)
Observations Diverses sur la Sterilité, Perte de Fruict, Foecondité, Accouchements, et Maladies des Femmes et Enfants Nouveaux Naiz.

Paris: Abraham Saugrain, 1617.

Second edition, octavo, two parts bound as one, engraved general title, and engraved portraits of the author and the dedicatee, Marie de' Medici (1575-1642), Queen of France and Bourgeois's patient; bound in contemporary parchment over stiff boards; perforated library stamp to engraved title, page 99, and last leaf; some worming to contents, spotting and toning, institutional bookplate inside front board with withdrawal stamp; some minor worming; front joint split, top panel of spine torn, 6 1/2 x 4 in.

Bourgeois was the first women to publish a book on midwifery. She was formally educated and licensed to practice as of 1598. Acting as official midwife to the French royal family, she delivered all of Marie de' Medici's children, including Louis XIII. Rare at auction.

[Together with] Two other midwifery titles: Raulin's Instructions Succintes sur les Accouchemens, Paris: Chez Vincent, 1770, 12mo;

[and] Bourgeois's Abrégé de L'Art des Accouchemens, Paris: Barrois, 1785, octavo, illustrated with engraved frontispiece and twenty-six full-paged plates "gravé en couleur," both in full contemporary sponged leather, the latter rebacked. (3)
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