Megatherium Skeleton Lithograph – Giant Ground Sloth, Brodtmann c.1830

1830 · Views & Engravings

Megatherium Skeleton Lithograph – Giant Ground Sloth, Brodtmann c.1830

Name: Megatherium Skeleton Lithograph – Giant Ground Sloth, Brodtmann c.1830
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-13176-106
Price: 245 USD
Availability: InStock

$245

€220 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1830
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 26 × 32.2 cm (10.2 × 12.7 in)
Condition: Good. Overall good antique condition. Light foxing and age-related spotting visible throughout, consistent with lithographs from circa 1830. Margins intact; no major tears or losses observed.
Period: The Early Republic
Reference: BG-13176-106

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

The skeleton of the Megatherium, the extinct giant ground sloth of South America, a lithograph drawn by Karl Joseph Brodtmann after Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, c.1830. The plate is numbered "Pl. 106" and captioned in Dutch, "Skelet van den reusachtigen Luijaard (Megatherium)."

The animal is shown in side view, standing on four heavy limbs with the spine arched over a deep rib cage and the head held low at the right. The huge claws of the feet are drawn in detail, the pelvis is broad and massive, and a cast shadow falls on the plain ground beneath. A small fraction mark is lettered under the body, apparently a scale.

The Megatherium was among the first extinct giant mammals to be reconstructed from fossil bones. Skeletons found in South America in the late 18th century made it one of the best-known animals of the early 19th-century debate about extinction. The plate comes from the Dutch edition of Schinz's illustrated natural history of man and animals, and the printing is in gray tones on cream paper.

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