Antique Walrus and Narwhal Print, Arctic Sea Scene with Manatee, circa 1890

This antique natural history print shows walruses, a manatee and a narwhal, an original plate from C. F. A. Kolb's Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere, published in Stuttgart by Hoffmann circa 1890. Walruses with long tusks lie on an ice floe in an Arctic sea, two manatees rest on the rocks behind, a narwhal with its spiral tusk swims in the foreground, and a polar bear can be seen on the icebergs in the distance.

The sheet is lettered 1. Abtheilung and Säugethiere 17. Blatt at the head, and every animal is numbered and named beneath the image in German Fraktur with its Latin name, here Wallross, Seekuh and Narwall. The icebergs and the small polar bear in the background turn this sheet into an Arctic landscape as much as a natural history plate.

Carl Friedrich August Kolb designed his Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere as an Anschauungs Unterricht für Schule und Haus, an object lesson for school and home, and the title page of this second edition announces 123 colored figures on 18 double folio plates together with 63 woodcuts in the text. The publisher was the Hoffmann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung of Wilhelm Nübling in Stuttgart, and the plates were printed by color lithography, a process that allowed German publishers of the later nineteenth century to issue large, bright teaching images at a price schools and families could afford. Kolb arranged the mammals in systematic order across the series, so each sheet brings together related animals from several continents in a single imagined landscape. The narwhal, with its single spiral tusk, has fascinated collectors since the age of the cabinet of curiosities.

With its broad double page format and lively color, this chromolithograph suits a study, a library, a child's room or a natural history wall, and it can be grouped with other plates from the same series to build a set.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a faint center fold as issued and a few small spots in the margins; the image is clean and strong.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.