Title: Chimie appliquée aux Arts (4 volumes).
Author: Jean-Antoine Chaptal
Publisher: Paris, Crapelet, chez Deterville, Libraire.
Binding: Hardcover
Date: 1807.
Edition: 1st Edition
4 volume set, 8vo. Volume 1: lxxix,[1], 302, [2] printed pages followed by 10 folding engaved copper plates, volume 2: viii, 544 pages with 1 folding engaved copper plate, volume 3: viii, 534 pages with 1 folding engaved copper plate, Volume 4: viii, 554 pages. All edges speckled green. Pages mildly & evenly toned. 13.5 x 20.5 cm. Contemporary half sheepskin, elegantly patinated, spines with brown morocco labels, gilt lettering and volume numbers, decorated with gilt. Boards with "root" marbled paper. Corners very slightly bumped. First edition dedication to Emperor Napoleon. This work was extremely successful because it advocated the popularisation of chemistry, making it possible to develop factories and create new branches of industry, particularly pharmaceuticals. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, count of Chanteloup, born June 5, 1756, in Nojaret and died July 29, 1832 in Paris, was a French chemist, doctor and politician. In 1798, Chaptal was elected a member of the prestigious Chemistry Section of the Institut de France. He became president of the section in 1802 soon after Napoleon appointed him Minister of Interior (6 November 1800). Chaptal was a key figure in the early industrialization in France under Napoleon and during the Bourbon Restoration. He was a founder and first president in 1801 of the important Society for the Encouragement of National Industry and a key organizer of industrial expositions held in Paris in 1801 and subsequent years. Chaptal was especially strong in applied science. Beginning in the early 1780s, he published a continuous stream of practical essays on such things as acids and salts, alum, sulfur, pottery and cheese making, sugar beets, fertilizers, bleaching, degreasing, painting and dyeing. As a chemicals industrialist, he was a major producer of hydrochloric, nitric and sulfuric acids, and was much sought after as a technical consultant for the manufacture of gunpowder. His reputation as a master of applied science, dedicated to using the discoveries of chemistry for the benefit of industry and agriculture, was furthered with the publication of his L'Art de faire, de gouverner et de perfectionner les vins (1801) and La Chimie appliquée aux arts (1806), works that drew on the theoretical chemistry of Lavoisier to revolutionize the art of wine-making in France. His new procedure of adding sugar to increase the final alcohol content of wines came to be called "chaptalization." Beautiful set in good condition. WorldCat locates 11 copies worldwide, none in the UK & not in the British Library.