Lionfish, Chimaera, Scorpionfish and Boxfish, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This hand colored copper engraving of fishes of strange form, the scorpionfish, the chimaera or rabbitfish, a four spined boxfish and the lionfish, comes from the Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch, engraved by Jacob Xaver Schmuzer. The Bilderbuch names them the dragon head, the sea rat, the four spined triangle fish and the feeler bearer.

The heading reads Fische, Pisces and Poissons, plate XXX, and the mark at lower right reads VII.B.12 beneath the signature Jacob Xaver Schmuzer. The pink barred scorpionfish leads the plate, the chimaera with its long whip tail follows, then the boxfish with its horn like spines, and at the foot the lionfish with its spreading filament fins in orange, violet and cream.

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 VII, 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 minor nicks at the upper edge; the image is clean.

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