A lovely 18th-century survey of a vineyard in eastern France
François Durge[z?], Plan geometrique de plusieurs Cantons de vielles et jeunes vignes ajnsi que de deux Champs scitues derrier Le village de Chaux Les ports mesuré et Leué par Larpenteur Soussigné ensuite dinvitation du Sr. Jacques quarteret dud Chaux [“Geometrical plan of several parcels of old and young vines, as well as two fields situated behind the village of Chaux-lès-Port, measured and surveyed by the undersigned surveyor at the request of Sieur Jacques Quarteret, of said Chaux.” Conflandey, France, November 6, 1784.
Ink and watercolor on laid paper with a crown-and-grapes water mark and preserving the deckle, 18 ¼”h x 24”w at sheet edge. Very light foxing and soiling, old folds with expert mends at a few intersections, a few pen trials on verso.
$5,000.00
In stock
A lovely late 18th-century watercolor plan of a vineyard in Chaux les Ports, near Vesoul, Haute-Saône, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France.
The plan records a small agricultural landscape with remarkable specificity, including small, privately-owned parcels of old and young vines, boundary features, access paths, and a new road cutting through several of the parcels. It offers an unusually intimate view of viticulture, landholding, and rural legal practice in eastern France on the eve of the Revolution. Such early plans of French vineyards are extremely rare in the American marketplace.
Chaux les Ports is located along the Saône River, east of the Côte d’Or and Burgundy proper. At the time more than forty different varieties of grape were grown in this region, including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Later, by the nineteenth century, it was especially famous for Franc Noir, a light bodied red wine grape that is a cross between Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc (as is Aligoté, Chardonnay and Gamay Noir). Franc Noir had been grown in this region since the Middle Ages, but it was particularly hard hit by phylloxera in the mid-19th century and now almost ceases to exist.
The plan delineates twenty adjacent parcels varying considerably in size, the whole bounded to the south by the road from Chaux to Conflandey, a small town a few kilometers distant. Each parcel is numbered and then listed at left in a table of “Observations”, giving the owner’s name and the year in which their vines were planted (The dates range from 1772-1780). Note 11 describes “hedges of brushwood and stone walls” separating the parcels from those to the north; note 21 describes a road built by Sieur Faivre (owner of parcels 3 and 16) that cuts through many of the other parcels; and note 22 describes a shared path.
Note 21 reads in full:
“Road which Sieur Faivre made through the vineyards of private owners, shown and numbered on the plan opposite.
“We have further recognized that, in the road made through the vineyard of Sieur Carteret, fourteen feet of vines [uncertain words] are found, for which we have charged no costs, whereas the others, which are not damages, were charged for them.”
It’s hard to make out precisely what is going on here, but it’s possible that the vineyard was surveyed in order to determine compensation due to the owners affected by Sieur Faivre’s road.
At lower left the survey is signed, attested, and dated November 6, 1784 by François Durge[z?], “sworn surveyor of the Bailliage of Vesoul, residing at Conflandey”. It is then signed on the same day by one “Bourgoing”, presumably in connection with its registration or other legal use.
A charming survival: a hand-drawn legal-agricultural document capturing, parcel by parcel, a working vineyard in eastern France just five years before the abolition of the ancien régime.
Inventory ID:
A lovely 18th-century survey of a vineyard in eastern France
François Durge[z?], Plan geometrique de plusieurs Cantons de vielles et jeunes vignes ajnsi que de deux Champs scitues derrier Le village de Chaux Les ports mesuré et Leué par Larpenteur Soussigné ensuite dinvitation du Sr. Jacques quarteret dud Chaux [“Geometrical plan of several parcels of old and young vines, as well as two fields situated behind the village of Chaux-lès-Port, measured and surveyed by the undersigned surveyor at the request of Sieur Jacques Quarteret, of said Chaux.” Conflandey, France, November 6, 1784.
$5,000.00
In stock
Ink and watercolor on laid paper with a crown-and-grapes water mark and preserving the deckle, 18 ¼”h x 24”w at sheet edge. Very light foxing and soiling, old folds with expert mends at a few intersections, a few pen trials on verso.
A lovely late 18th-century watercolor plan of a vineyard in Chaux les Ports, near Vesoul, Haute-Saône, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France.
The plan records a small agricultural landscape with remarkable specificity, including small, privately-owned parcels of old and young vines, boundary features, access paths, and a new road cutting through several of the parcels. It offers an unusually intimate view of viticulture, landholding, and rural legal practice in eastern France on the eve of the Revolution. Such early plans of French vineyards are extremely rare in the American marketplace.
Chaux les Ports is located along the Saône River, east of the Côte d’Or and Burgundy proper. At the time more than forty different varieties of grape were grown in this region, including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Later, by the nineteenth century, it was especially famous for Franc Noir, a light bodied red wine grape that is a cross between Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc (as is Aligoté, Chardonnay and Gamay Noir). Franc Noir had been grown in this region since the Middle Ages, but it was particularly hard hit by phylloxera in the mid-19th century and now almost ceases to exist.
The plan delineates twenty adjacent parcels varying considerably in size, the whole bounded to the south by the road from Chaux to Conflandey, a small town a few kilometers distant. Each parcel is numbered and then listed at left in a table of “Observations”, giving the owner’s name and the year in which their vines were planted (The dates range from 1772-1780). Note 11 describes “hedges of brushwood and stone walls” separating the parcels from those to the north; note 21 describes a road built by Sieur Faivre (owner of parcels 3 and 16) that cuts through many of the other parcels; and note 22 describes a shared path.
Note 21 reads in full:
“Road which Sieur Faivre made through the vineyards of private owners, shown and numbered on the plan opposite.
“We have further recognized that, in the road made through the vineyard of Sieur Carteret, fourteen feet of vines [uncertain words] are found, for which we have charged no costs, whereas the others, which are not damages, were charged for them.”
It’s hard to make out precisely what is going on here, but it’s possible that the vineyard was surveyed in order to determine compensation due to the owners affected by Sieur Faivre’s road.
At lower left the survey is signed, attested, and dated November 6, 1784 by François Durge[z?], “sworn surveyor of the Bailliage of Vesoul, residing at Conflandey”. It is then signed on the same day by one “Bourgoing”, presumably in connection with its registration or other legal use.
A charming survival: a hand-drawn legal-agricultural document capturing, parcel by parcel, a working vineyard in eastern France just five years before the abolition of the ancien régime.
Additional information
| year published | 1784 |
|---|
