90 plants with reference numbers

Father and son Jacques and Paul Contant were apothecaries and collectors of cultural and natural history objects in Poitiers, where they amassed one of the most important cabinets de curiosité in seventeenth-century France. The Contants collected specimens in the Mediterranean region and exchanged objects with the University of Montpellier to form their large and unique collection. Their records indicated that the Contants owned thousands of items rare to Europe, including plants, animals, herbs, perfumes, fossils, thousands of bronze statuettes, and one 18-foot canoe. The “cabinet,” precursor to the modern museum, emerged during the Renaissance period as a display of wealth, sophistication, and learning.

This engraving is one of fifteen plates of flora, fauna, and mythical creatures in Les Oeuvres, the collected opus of the Contants. The illustration was designed by Paul Contant and engraved by Pierre Demoges, featuring 90 plants numbered to correspond with a preceding catalogue. The Contants tended a private botanical garden in the town center of Poitiers, supporting their studies in horticulture and herbalism.

Les Oeuvres contains five works of botanical catalogue in verse, among them Les commentaires fur Dioscoride, a botanical catalogue completed by Jacques Contant, and Le Second Eden, a poem by Paul Contant describing the plants that grew in the Garden of Eden. Fusing scientific inquiry and poetry in what is now considered one of the first “museum books,” Les Oeuvres is a detailed and illustrated catalogue of an early natural history collection.