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Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
Gervais, Jean-Antoine & Elisabeth Gervais (fl. circa 1820) Opuscule sur la Vinification, Traitant des Vices des Méthodes Usitées pour la Fabrication des Vins, et des Avantages du Procédé de M.elle Élizabeth Gervais.
Montpellier: J.-G. Tournel, 1820.
First edition, with vignette to title and without the letters at the end, octavo; bound in contemporary half leather (worn) with marbled paper boards, 7 3/4 x 4 3/4 in..
"Elisabeth Gervais, a landowner in the south of France near Montpellier, grew grapes and was one of the early experimenters in wine quality improvement. A description of the equipment she used for carrying out the fermentation process appeared in the London journal Philosophical Magazine in 1823, a notably early date for a report of technical developments by a woman experimenter. Her method of using semi-closed vessels rather than the open vats then in general use gave a higher quality product for wines, cider, and beer; two years previously a short monograph on wine production and the advantages of the semi-closed-vessel method, which had already been granted a government patent, had been published by [her brother] Jean Antoine Gervais." (cf. Creese, Thomas M., et al. Ladies in the Laboratory II: West European Women in Science, 1800-1900: a Survey of Their Contributions to Research. United Kingdom, Scarecrow Press, 2004.)
Simon Vinaria 19; Lambert 441; Querard III, 336; Oberle Fritsch 163.
