Bodily Exercises of the Persians, Antique Niebuhr Print, 1780

An original antique copper engraving, published in 1780, showing men at their exercises inside a tall vaulted hall. The caption engraved in the lower margin reads Lichaams-oeffeningen der Perzen. in Dutch and Exercices du Corps chez les Persans. in French, both meaning "Bodily Exercises of the Persians".

The hall rises to the top of the image, its brick walls opening into three great arched recesses, one at each side and a broader one at the back, with small lamp niches set into the piers. On the floor the exercisers are shown in different postures, each marked with a small key letter: men standing on their hands, one with his body braced straight against a leaning board, others on all fours or stretched flat on the ground as if pressing up, and at the center a standing man holding a heavy wooden beam across his shoulders. Spectators and musicians sit on the raised benches around the floor. At the left three men in tall caps sit together, one of them with a drum, and in the central recess a group is seated and talking, while at the right a man reclines on the bench holding up a flat board in one hand.

The plate number Tab: XXXVII. is engraved at the upper right, and the engraver's credit Fritschius fec. is lettered under the lower right corner of the image.

This sheet belongs to volume two of Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie, translated from the German (Traduit de l'Allemand) and published at Amsterdam by S. J. Baalde and at Utrecht by Barthelemy Wild in 1780. Carsten Niebuhr (1733 to 1815), a German born surveyor in Danish service, was the only member of the Danish expedition to Arabia (1761 to 1767) to return alive. The expedition's artist, Georg Wilhelm Baurenfeind, died at sea in 1763.

Slight wear at the bottom left corner. Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left. Several larger brown marks.

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