Eleven Flies and Hover Flies, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1815

This hand colored copper engraving of eleven flies, among them banded hover flies and a large fly with broad pale wings at the center, comes from the later Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch. Each fly is set out symmetrically with a small scale line giving its natural size.

The heading reads Insecten LXXXVII and Insectes LXXXVII, and the mark at lower right reads XVIII.B.34. The figures are numbered one to eleven and include yellow and black wasp mimics, a fly with a scarlet banded abdomen, dark metallic blue flies and slender long legged species. The species are identified here only at group level, as the accompanying text leaf is not present.

The later volumes of the Vienna edition, published in Vienna under the title Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnügen der Jugend, continued the reprint of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Weimar Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in volumes of fifty plates each, with German and French headings in place of the three languages of the earlier plates. The Weimar original, the great illustrated encyclopaedia for children issued by the Landes Industrie Comptoir from 1790 onwards, was followed subject for subject, and the plates were sold colored by hand. The small mark at the foot, giving the Vienna volume and plate number, is what distinguishes these sheets from the Weimar issue. As a copper engraving colored by hand for a teaching book, it combines scientific ambition with a direct, appealing clarity. This sheet comes from Vienna volume XVIII, which places it circa 1813 to 1818.

A plate like this suits a study, a library or a collection of early natural history, and it hangs well in a group with other Bertuch insect and microscope plates, where the variety of subjects and the consistent format of the series come into their own.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, faint show-through of text and a few small nicks along the right edge; the flies are clean and crisply colored.

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