Antique Print of the French Agriculture Display, Vienna World Fair, 1873

This antique print shows the French agricultural exhibit at the Vienna Exposition of 1873, drawn and lithographed by Victor Rose for the album of the Direction de l'Agriculture. Rose recorded the principal vitrine of the Direction de l'Agriculture exactly as it stood on the floor at Vienna: three bays lettered Concours Regionaux et Amelioration du Betail, France Agricole and Enseignement Agricole et Veterinaire, busts and flags along the top, the great map of France at the center over its panel of Donnees Statistiques, and the prize silver ranged along the shelf below.

It is the only sheet in the album that shows the exhibit itself rather than its contents, and so it makes a natural companion to any group of the maps, breed portraits and views that the vitrine was built to display.

The sheet comes from the folio of maps, plans and drawings that the Direction de l'Agriculture of the French Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce assembled for its own exhibit at the Exposition Universelle held in Vienna in 1873, printed in Paris by the Imprimerie Nationale. The album gathered the statistical cartography, the model state farms, the breed portraits and the prize silver by which France meant to present its agriculture to the world. Its thematic maps belong to the first generation of printed statistical mapping, a field now collected for the history of data visualisation quite as much as for the history of farming.

The print is a lithograph, issued in 1873. It is uncolored. This antique Vienna Exposition print would suit a study, library or office, and it will interest collectors of world fair history, French agriculture and the history of exhibition design.

The sheet is in good condition, with age toning, scattered foxing and minor marks, mainly in the wide margins. There are small tears and creases along the right edge, with slight general edge wear. The toning is the ordinary result of age rather than damage. Please see the images for a full view of the condition.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.