Beaver Dams on a Rocky Shore – 19th Century Canadian Wildlife Engraving

circa 1850 · Views & Engravings

Beaver Dams on a Rocky Shore – 19th Century Canadian Wildlife Engraving

Name: Beaver Dams on a Rocky Shore – 19th Century Canadian Wildlife Engraving
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-05150-18
Price: 125 USD
Availability: InStock

$125

€110 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: circa 1850
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 12.5 × 20.5 cm (4.9 × 8.1 in)
Places: Canada
Reference: BG-05150-18

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

Beavers at work, an original steel engraving by Lemaitre, headed "Canada" and titled "Constructions des Castors," with "Lemaitre direxit" printed below the plate and a plate number faintly marked at the upper right. It was made in France around 1850.

Three beavers are shown at the edge of the water in the foreground: one sits upright near the bank, another stands on a fallen log by the shore, and a third crawls across the ground at the right. Behind them a bank of weathered rock rises toward the right, topped with trees, with a rounded mound of branches and mud at its foot, and the water stretches away at the left toward a low, distant horizon under a soft, lightly shaded sky. The rock, bark and fur are rendered with close, fine hatching.

The beaver was the animal at the center of the North American fur trade, and its lodges and dams were a standard subject in European accounts of Canada. This plate belongs to a set of small Canadian views and is one of the few in it given to wildlife rather than to towns or people.

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