Frogfish with Lure and a Ribbon Fish, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1810

This hand colored copper engraving of two frogfishes with their fishing lures and a long ribbon like fish comes from the Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch, engraved by Jaresch. The frogfishes, one mottled in yellow and red on dark brown, the other in pink and blue, show the angler's rod on the head with which they tempt their prey.

The heading reads Fische, Pisces and Poissons, plate XLI, and the mark at lower right reads XI.B.8 beside the signature Jaresch sculp. The upper figure is a strange elongated fish with a crested head and a trailing ribbon body looped across the sheet. The species are identified here only at group level, since the accompanying text leaf is not present.

The Vienna edition was begun by Anton Pichler, its later volumes believed to have been issued by B. Ph. Bauer, 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 XI, which places it circa 1807 to 1812.

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 small nick at the right edge and a light stain in the lower right margin; the image is clean and strong.

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