Owl Butterfly from Suriname, Antique Bertuch Print, Vienna, circa 1805

This antique butterfly print shows the forest giant owl butterfly, Caligo eurilochus, from Suriname, in two views on an original hand colored plate from the Vienna edition of Bertuch's Bilderbuch headed Insecten XXX.

Figure one shows the underside, with the large yellow ringed eye spot that gives the owl butterflies their name and the fine wavy markings that resemble feathers. Figure two shows the butterfly from above with its wings spread, in muted brown and violet with dark hindwings edged in orange. Bertuch described it as the Surinam Eurilochus, and the plate reflects the fascination of the period with the butterflies of the Dutch colony made famous by Maria Sibylla Merian.

The plate comes from the Vienna edition of Bertuch's Bilderbuch, published in Vienna under the title Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend. Its source is the celebrated Bilderbuch fuer Kinder, the picture book for children conceived and edited by Friedrich Justin Bertuch in Weimar, whose plates were engraved afresh by Viennese engravers for this edition. Most plates carry their subject class and number in German, Latin and French across the top, so that the work could teach languages as well as natural history. Here the heading belongs to the series of insects, a class that allowed the engravers to show exotic butterflies, moths and beetles in striking color. The small engraved mark VIII.B.27 places the sheet in volume 8 of the Vienna edition, one of the volumes issued in Vienna in the first years of the nineteenth century.

It is a copperplate engraving, colored by hand with watercolor in the manner of the Weimar original. Bertuch drew his images from the best natural history books of his time, and the result is a lively, accessible record of how the natural world was understood around 1800. Single plates from the Bilderbuch are popular with collectors of antique natural history prints, and a group of related plates makes a handsome display in a study, library or hallway.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning and a few small spots in the margins and a small nick at the right edge; the image itself is clean and bright.

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