Set of 7 Antique Prints of an Egyptian Cobra and other Snakes and Reptiles

1861 · Views & Engravings

Set of 7 Antique Prints of an Egyptian Cobra and other Snakes and Reptiles

Name: Set of 7 Antique Prints of an Egyptian Cobra and other Snakes and Reptiles
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-13214-6 till -12
Price: 995 USD
Availability: InStock

$995

€890 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1861
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 23.4 × 15.3 cm (9.2 × 6 in)
Condition: Good. General age-related toning. Minor wear and soiling. With original protective sheet attached. Blank verso. Please study image carefully.
Reference: BG-13214-6 till -12

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

Seven plates of snakes and lizards from the Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle, edited by Charles Henry Dessalines d'Orbigny and published in 1861. Each sheet is a hand-colored engraving headed "Dict. Univ. d'Hist. Nat." and "Reptiles", with the species named in French and Latin beneath.

Most plates pair two animals, one above the other, in a small landscape. The set includes an Egyptian cobra with its hood spread in yellow-green, a boa-like snake coiled on a branch, a slender green snake in foliage, and banded snakes with red, black and white rings. Smooth-bodied lizards and slow-worms fill several plates, and a pair of heavy-bodied vipers with dark diamond markings appears on another.

The prints are a good sample of how a French natural history of the 1860s organized the reptiles by order, with each animal drawn with a few plants or rocks to set the scene.

D'Orbigny was a French botanist and geologist who identified many of the flowering plant species returned to France from his brother's collecting journeys through South America.

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