Falcons and Hawks including the Peregrine, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This antique bird print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows six falcons and hawks, the birds of the falconer. The heading reads Vögel LXI and the Vienna mark VIII.B.20 is engraved at lower right.

Figure 1 is a falcon with a dark moustache mark and streaked breast on a mossy rock, of the peregrine type. The others include a gray backed hawk with barred tail, a slate gray bird with a green tinged head, a rufous kite like bird and a barred and streaked hawk. Falconry was still practised at the courts of Germany and Austria around 1800, and plates like this taught children to tell the hunting birds apart. The individual species are not named beyond the peregrine type, as the companion text is not present.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747 to 1822) began his Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in Weimar in 1790 as a picture encyclopaedia for young readers, and over four decades it grew to almost 1,200 plates on plants, animals, peoples, antiquities and the sciences. Its success led to other editions, and this sheet comes from the Vienna edition published by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French. The Vienna plates were newly engraved after the Weimar originals, keep the Weimar subject numbering in a heading in German, Latin and French, and carry a volume and plate number in the lower margin, here the mark VIII.B.20. Vienna volume VIII follows Weimar volume IV, which appeared in 1802, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand color, as the Vienna volumes were issued colored.

A bird plate like this suits a study, library or hallway, and several sheets from the Bilderbuch hang well together in a matching row. For a collector of ornithological prints it is an affordable and characterful example of early nineteenth century natural history teaching.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a small chip at the upper right edge and a few tiny spots; the image is clean and bright.

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