Album Vilmorin
from Wikipedia
-
Vilmorin
Vilmorin is a French seed producer.
Along with its international subsidiaries, the company considers itself to be the fourth largest seed company in the world. The company has a long history in France, where it was family-controlled for almost two centuries, and today exists as a publicly traded company owned principally by agro-industrial cooperative Groupe Limagrain, the largest plant breeding and seed company in the European Union.
-
History
Vilmorin was founded as a plant and seed boutique in 1742 by seed expert Claude Geoffroy and her husband Pierre Andrieux, the chief seed supplier and botanist to King Louis XV. The store was located on the quai de la Mégisserie, a street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. In 1774, their daughter married botany enthusiast Philippe-Victoire Levêque de Vilmorin (1746-1804). Together, they revived the stores and created the Vilmorin-Andrieux House, which later became Vilmorin-Andrieux and Company under the leadership of their son, Philippe André de Vilmorin (1776-1862).
Philippe-Victoire de Vilmorin began importing trees and exotic plants into Europe in 1766, starting with the American tulip tree, the domesticated beet, and the rutabaga. Such plants were unknown in Europe prior to Vilmorin-Andrieux's commercial promotion of them for food, fodder and ornamentation.
-
Catalogs
The company produced the first seed catalog for farmers and academics. In 1856, Louis de Vilmorin published "Note on the Creation of a New Race of Beetroot and Considerations on Heredity in Plants", establishing the theoretical groundwork for the modern seed-breeding industry. The company's leaders continued to publish numerous botanical academic articles throughout the company's early history.
-
The Vegetable Garden
At the height of its international renown, the company published its splendid Album Vilmorin. Les Plantes potagères (The Vegetable Garden, 1850–1895) featuring 46 magnificent color plates.
The Vilmorins employed some 15 painters to create this work of agro-botanic iconography; most had trained as artist-naturalists at the Jardin des Plantes, the former Royal Gardens, including Elisa Champin, who painted a large number of the finest plates. These illustrations—reproduced here with exquisite care and accuracy—transcend mere artistic interest, beautiful as they are; they are also a valuable resource for anyone researching cultivarietal evolution, and old varieties of fruits and vegetables.