954J Philippe Sylvestre DuFour  (born Manosque 1622, died Vevey (Canton de Vaud) 1687)

Drey Neue Curieuse Tractätgen, von dem Tranck Cafe, Sinesischen The, und der Chocolata, welche Nach ihren Eigenschafften, Gewächs, Fortpflantzung, Præparirung, Tugenden und herrlichen Nutzen sehr curieus beschrieben, Und nunmehro in die hochteutsche Sprache übersetzet von dem, welcher sich iederzeit nennet Theæ Potum Maxime Colentem.

Budissin : In Verlegung Friedrich Arnsts : druckts Andreas Richter,1692                   Price $2,300

Duodecimo,  16 x 9 cm. signatures:     3 leaves, 247 (actually 245) pages, 1 leaf, with engraved frontispiece and 3 copperplate engravings, Bound in contemporary full vellum, with handwritten title on spine.  First published in Lyon in 1671 (in German in 1686), based on various sources. 

 The engravings depict Arabs, Chinese, and Native Americans enjoying their national drinks, each with a small illustration of the plants. Dufour works from travel literature, mercantile reports, and medical authorities, situating these beverages within Galenic and Paracelsian frameworks while acknowledging their foreign cultural origins. He worked as a spice merchant in Marseille, where he had taken over the business from his uncle. As a Calvinist (Protestant), he had to flee into exile in Switzerland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, where he died in 1687 (Vevey). The book was often attributed to Jacob Spon in earlier times, but he was the translator of the Latin edition. Spon was also a Calvinist and a friend of Dufour, and he too fled to Switzerland, where he published his books in Geneva. The book is illustrated with four copperplate engravings. The title engraving shows the Muslim, the Chinese, and the Indians drinking their beverages; the other three engravings each depict these men with illustrations of the respective plants

This volume describes  how the history of colonialism as it makes global exchange visible at the level of the everyday body. By placing coffee (Arabian/Ottoman routes), tea (Chinese networks), and chocolate (Mesoamerican cultivation under Iberian empire) into a single comparative framework, Dufour provides students with a ready-made case study in early modern commodity circulation. The book allows readers to move beyond abstract discussions of empire and instead examine how colonial trade reshaped diet, medicine, and habit in Europe. This book traces how plants grown in colonized or commercially penetrated regions were botanically described, medically rationalized, and culturally normalized within the German-speaking world.

At the same time, the treatise reveals how knowledge production participates in colonial systems. Dufour compiles travel accounts, mercantile reports, and medical authorities to transform foreign practices into European scientific discourse. The engraved plates—Arabs drinking coffee, Chinese figures with tea, Indigenous Americans consuming chocolate—invite analysis of how print culture constructs ethnographic difference while simultaneously domesticating it. In a classroom, these images become entry points for discussions of representation, appropriation, and the early formation of racialized and commercial categories..

This book  supports broader sociological conversations about stimulants and the disciplining of time. Coffee and tea fostered new rhythms of wakefulness that underpinned mercantile capitalism and the emerging public sphere. When read alongside studies of coffeehouses, Atlantic trade, or plantation economies, the volume demonstrates how substances regulate bodies in ways that sustain imperial systems.  .

VD17 3:622748L; Mueller 69; Krivatsy 3488.

For university and special collections purchases, I am accustomed to working within committee timelines and budget cycles. Titles may be placed on hold during review, and flexible invoicing arrangements can be discussed where appropriate. I welcome inquiries at jamesgray2@me.com.

Jamesgray2@me.com