Hammerhead Shark with Pipefish and Sea Moths, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1820

This hand colored copper engraving of a hammerhead shark and a second shark, with two pipefishes and two small armored fishes, comes from the later Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch, engraved by L. Rieder. The hammerhead, drawn from above to show its extraordinary head, fills the foot of the sheet.

The heading reads Fische LIX and Poissons LIX, and the mark at lower right reads XX.B.3, with the signature L. Rieder sc. at lower left. The two sharks are left mainly in gray engraved line, while the long pipefishes above them are banded in red and blue and the two small flattened fishes, apparently sea moths, are colored pink and violet. Species other than the hammerhead are identified here at group level only.

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 XX, which places it circa 1818 to 1822.

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, a faint mark near one of the small fish and minor wear to the right edge.

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