1805 Handcolored Engraving of Unique Mammals from Bertuch's "Bilderbuch"

1805 · Birds, Plants & Natural History

1805 Handcolored Engraving of Unique Mammals from Bertuch's "Bilderbuch"

Name: 1805 Handcolored Engraving of Unique Mammals from Bertuch's "Bilderbuch"
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-14000-6
Price: 135 USD
Availability: InStock

$135

€120 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1805
Kind: Birds, Plants & Natural History
Size: 23 × 19 cm (9.1 × 7.5 in)
Condition: Good. Condition with some foxing and age-related wear, consistent with its age and due to handling over 200 years, adding to its patina. Original hand-colored. Study the images carefully.
Period: The Early Republic
Reference: BG-14000-6

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

Five mammals on one sheet, an original hand-colored copper engraving of 1805 from Friedrich Johann Bertuch's Bilderbuch fuer Kinder (Picture Book for Children), published at Weimar. The plate is numbered LXX in the heading in German, French and Latin, and the figures are numbered 1 to 5 on the sheet.

The pangolin (Fig. 1) takes the middle of the sheet, climbing along a branch with its scales shaded in tawny brown and its long tail curling down the right side. Above it, a nine-banded armadillo (Fig. 2) stands on grass beside a bush, and a larger armadillo (Fig. 3) walks across the top left in the same pose. At the upper right a porcupine with a brush at the end of its tail (Fig. 5) turns its head toward the armadillo, and at the foot of the sheet a crested porcupine (Fig. 4) raises its long quills over a grassy bank.

The armadillos and the American porcupine are animals of the New World, set here beside two Old World animals to show the forms of armor and spines in mammals. The picture book was issued in twelve volumes between 1790 and 1830.

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