Monsieur Duvaucel's (extinct) Trogon (1 Viewer)

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Here's a short question regarding a guy mentioned in my MS (but only briefly, in company with Diard*), commemorated in ...

duvaucelii as in (for example):
• the Scarlet-rumped Trogon Harpactes duvaucelii TEMMINCK 1824 (here, and/alt. here), as "[Trogon] duvaucelii", with a: Plate (No.291), of "Couroucou Duvaucel" (in French) here:

Le beau Couroucou, que je m’empressai de dédier à Duvaucel lorsque nous étions loin de prévoir qu’il dût servir, une année plus tard, à faire entendre dans cet article les accens lugubres d’une épitaphe, est du nombre des découvertes en ornithologie que nous devons aux voyages de ce naturaliste dans l’île de Sumatra. Cette espèce n’a pas été distinguée par ...

In today's Key we find the dedicatee as:

duvaucelii
Alfred Duvaucel (1796-1824) French naturalist, collector in Sumatra and India (Harpactes, Psilopogon, syn. Pucrasia macrolopha nipalensis, syn. Rhinortha chlorophaea, Vanellus).

As well as in:

Duvaucelius
(Trogonidae; syn. Harpactes † Scarlet-rumped Trogon H. duvaucelii) Alfred Duvaucel (1796-1824) French naturalist, collector in Sumatra and India (cf. specific name Trogon duvaucelii Temminck, 1824); ...​

But .. is there anyone who know when (exactly) Alfred Duvaucel was born?

Was it in 1793, as claimed in most sources (not only in/on Wikipedia, but also in quite a few Scientific papers), or was he born in 1796, as claimed by today's Key?

Anyone who knows, for sure?

According to Danièle Weiler (2019**):

Alfred Duvaucel was born in Paris on 4 February 1793, the youngest of four Children. His mother, Anne-Marie Loquet du Trazail had married Louis-Philippe Alexandre Duvaucel, Marquis of Castelneau, a fermier-géneral (an aristocrat who collected taxes for the King), who was born in 1754. Sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris – possibly for adulterating tobacco – Louis-Philippe was guillotined on 8 May 1794 ... and a year after the birth of his Son. Sophie, the eldest of the Duvaucel children, was born on 19 December 1789 and became Alfred’s confidante and recipient of his letters. The other two cildren, Thélème and Martial, died young.

Alfred was 11 years old when his mother married Georges Cuvier on 2 February 1804 [***] . They had four children, three of whom died in infancy. Clementine, born in 1809, and the only child to survive childhood, died at the age of 18. Deeply affected by the death of his children, Georges Cuvier increasingly focused his affection on Sophie and Alfred.

With that many details I tend to trust Weiler, and (this far) in my MS, and notes, I'll have his Birth year as "1793", Stepson of 'Georges' Cuvier, ... and onwards.

Anyone who think otherwise?

Björn

---

*Pierre Médard Diard (1794–1863), earlier dealt with (back in 2014) in thread; Monsieur Diard in Diard’s Trogon Harpactes diardii … in French (here)

**Weiler, D. 2019. Pierre Médard Diard and Alfred Duvaucel: Two French Naturalists in the Service of Sir Stamford Raffles (December 7, 1818–March 27, 1820), pp. 2/4–45, in: Martyn E. Y. Low, Kate Pocklington & Wan F. A. Jusoh (Eds.) Voyageurs, Explorateurs et Scientifiques: The French and Natural History in Singapore. Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, National University of Singapore & Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. 2019. Singapore.

*** Re. the alleged Stepfather 'Georges' Cuvier, see thread Cuvier, and "his" many Birds ... (here).

 

[Taphrospilus]

Are you sure born in Paris and not in Bièvres (Essonne)?

If you look https://archives.essonne.fr/ark:/28047/7kqp1msgnjxv/07049d0d-6135-4039-b75a-201469b8e2da p.10 of 190 b. 4 Feb. 1793.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

... Are you sure born in Paris and not in Bièvres (Essonne)?
...

Martin, in this case, I'm sure of very little (close to nothing). I just quoted Danièle Weiler (2019), ...

 

[l_raty]

duvaucelii as in (for example):
• the Scarlet-rumped Trogon Harpactes duvaucelii TEMMINCK 1824 (here, and/alt. here), as "[Trogon] duvaucelii", with a: Plate (No.291), of "Couroucou Duvaucel" (in French) here:

Somewhat intriguing case...

The accepted date of publication of livr. 49 of the Planches coloriées is 18 Aug 1824.
But the text, as it appears in the book, and despite the "49e livraison" in the footer of the first page, is clearly posterior to this -- it presents explicitly the publication of the plate as a past event, and it refers to Frédéric Cuvier's description of the "Semnopithèque croo" here, which is dated -- end of the text, next page -- "Mars, 1825".
Yet a list of the content of this livraison, including the scientific name, appeared in Rev. Bibliogr. Roy. des Pays-Bas et de l'Étranger / Indic. Gén. Impr. Libr. on 15 Dec 1824 : here.
Is the original text associated to this plate known to have been subsequently replaced by a later version ?

 

[l_raty]

If you look https://archives.essonne.fr/ark:/28047/7kqp1msgnjxv/07049d0d-6135-4039-b75a-201469b8e2da p.10 of 190 b. 4 Feb. 1793.

Complete record here (cote 4E/196, scans 14-15/248).

"Aujourd'hui quatrième jour du mois de février de l'an mil sept cent quatre-vingt-treize, l'an second de la République Française, à cinq heures après midi, par devant moy Nicolas Martin Arnaud Lemire officier public de la commune de Bièvres est comparu en la salle de la maison commune le citoyen Glaude Gaspard Lezay Marnezien [...] lequel a déclaré à moy officier public, en l'absence de Louis Philippe Duvaucel, cy devant fermier général et maintenant en Hollande en vertu d'un passeport qui lui a été délivré par le citoyen ministre des affaires étrangères et par la convention nationale, que la citoyenne Anne Marie Coquet (*) âgée de vingt-six ans, épouse en légitime mariage du dit Louis Philippe Duvaucel, est accouchée ce jourd'huy à trois heures du matin d'un enfant mâle que le citoyen Glaude Gaspard Lezay Marnezien m'a présenté et auquel il a été donné le prénom de Alfred."

Born in Bièvres, Essonne, on 4 Feb 1793 (at 3 am).

----
(*) There is something about this name -- 'Loquet' vs. 'Coquet' -- that I don't understand. She was also 'Coquet' in the record of her (subsequent) marriage with Cuvier (link here). But, for some reason, she is quite systematically called 'Loquet' by genealogists.

 

[Taphrospilus]

Somewhat intriguing case...

The accepted date of publication of livr. 49 of the Planches coloriées is 18 Aug 1824.
But the text, as it appears in the book, and despite the "49e livraison" in the footer of the first page, is clearly posterior to this -- it presents explicitly the publication of the plate as a past event, and it refers to Frédéric Cuvier's description of the "Semnopithèque croo" here, which is dated -- end of the text, next page -- "Mars, 1825".
Yet a list of the content of this livraison, including the scientific name, appeared in Rev. Bibliogr. Roy. des Pays-Bas et de l'Étranger / Indic. Gén. Impr. Libr. on 15 Dec 1824 : here.
Is the original text associated to this plate known to have been subsequently replaced by a later version ?

Could it be something like plate was published before the text? I am not sure if Dickinson continued his research https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward-Dickinson-2/publication/267924442_The_first_twenty_livraisons_of_Les_Planches_Coloriees_d'Oiseaux_of_Temminck_Laugier_1820-1839_IV_Discovery_of_the_remaining_wrappers/links/545cd5d00cf295b5615e5e98/The-first-twenty-livraisons-of-Les-Planches-Coloriees-dOiseaux-of-Temminck-Laugier-1820-1839-IV-Discovery-of-the-remaining-wrappers.pdf

 

[l_raty]

Could it be something like plate was published before the text? Iam not sure if Dickinson continued his reseach https://www.researchgate.net/profil...39-IV-Discovery-of-the-remaining-wrappers.pdf

With a text starting with "Lorsque nous avons publié, en août 1824, la figure de cet oiseau inédit" (i.e., "When we published, back in August 1824, the illustration of this undescribed bird"), I don't think there can be any doubt that the plate was published before the text.

But the plates of this work bear no scientific names and, so far as I know, only the 20 first wrappers (those of the 20 first livraisons, which had only plates in them) had names printed on them: if the text appeared after March 1825, what was the source of the 15 Dec 1824 review, which reported the bird as "291. Couroucou Duvaucel, Trogon Duvaucelii, Tem., de l'Inde" ?
This made me wonder whether Temminck might have cancelled a first version of the text (which might have been the source of the review), perhaps because he wished to replace it with something that would be more of a tribute to the recently deceased Duvaucel.
(If not, the review would arguably become the OD.)


(Plate 491 and 492, from livraison 83 (usually dated 20 Feb 1830), were explicitly reported by William Jardine as having been published without the descriptive text; and Jardine, despite having already received three more livraisons (84-86), was evidently still unaware of the scientific name intended for the birds on these two plates when he reported on them. The text associated to plate 491 was also explicit that the dedicatee (Nicolas Huët, who died on 8 Dec 1830) had passed away at the time of writing, but had seen the plate published (*). The corresponding texts nevertheless have a "Recueil d'Oiseaux, 83e livraison" printed in the footer of their first page, as if they had appeared together with the plate. This suggests that in the case of a delayed (or replaced ?) text, we should not necessarily expect the text to be marked as being part of a later livraison.

(*) "C'est à votre mémoire, digne et estimable ami, que nous dédions l'une des belles productions de votre art, porté au plus haut degré de perfection, vous en vîtes la dédicace sur la planche publiée dans la 83e livraison, mais l'expression publique de nos sentimens s'adresse à votre tombe".
= "It's to your memory, worthy and estimable friend, that we dedicate one of the beautiful productions of your art, brought to the highest degree of perfection, you saw the dedication on the plate published in the 83rd livraison, but the public expression of our feelings is addressed to your tomb.")

 

[Taphrospilus]

Does that help you ser.2:v.4=no.13-16 (1868) - Ibis - Biodiversity Heritage Library or ser.7:v.4=no.13-16 (1898) - Ibis - Biodiversity Heritage Library or https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Anzeiger-Ornith-Ges-Bayerns_1_7_0054-0055.pdf ? Especially Crotch and Sherborn?