Five Soles and Flatfish, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1815

This hand colored copper engraving of five flatfishes, soles and their relatives, comes from the later Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch. Their patterned upper sides are finely colored, from a golden sole blotched in brown to an oval flatfish spotted in black on yellow within a pink and black fringe.

The heading reads Fische LVI and Poissons LVI, and the mark at lower right reads XVIII.B.12. The five numbered figures show the flat, asymmetrical bodies and continuous fin fringes of the soles, one marbled in a maze like pattern, another plain reddish brown. The species are identified here at group level only, since the 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 kitchen, a dining room, a study or a coastal house, and it hangs well in a group with other Bertuch fish plates, where the color and the consistent format of the series make a lively and coherent wall.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, faint show through of the verso text and a few small spots and nicks at the right margin; the image is clean.

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