Flying Fish with a Flying Gurnard, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This hand colored copper engraving of flying fishes, three with their long wing like pectoral fins spread and a brightly colored fish at the top that appears to be a flying gurnard, comes from the Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch, engraved by Jacob Xaver Schmuzer. The flying fish were among the marvels reported by every ocean traveler of the age.

The heading reads Fische, Pisces and Poissons, plate XXIV, and the mark at lower right reads IV.B.18 beneath the signature Jacob Xaver Schmuzer. The upper fish is richly colored in red, olive and blue with fan shaped fins, and the three flying fishes below are shown in silver, mauve and gray with finely engraved fin rays. The species are identified here by appearance, the text leaf not being present.

The Vienna edition was published by Anton Pichler under the title Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnügen der Jugend, with German and French text, in volumes of fifty plates each, and its plates were newly engraved in Vienna, many of them by the brothers Jacob Xaver and J. J. Schmuzer. It follows the Weimar original of Friedrich Justin Bertuch, the great illustrated encyclopaedia for children issued by the Landes Industrie Comptoir from 1790 onwards, subject for subject, and it was sold with the plates 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 IV, which places it circa 1801 to 1807.

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, a few small spots in the margins and a small nick at the right edge; the image is clean and strong.

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