Swallows, Swifts and Nightjar, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This antique bird print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows swallows, swifts and a nightjar, the birds that hunt insects on the wing. The heading reads Vögel XXIX and the plate is signed J. B. Pfitzer above the Vienna mark V.B.9.

Figure 1 is the barn swallow with its red throat and forked tail, figure 2 a swift clinging at the entrance to its nest in a wall, and figure 3 a house martin at its mud nest under a ledge. Figure 5 is the nightjar, perched along a branch with its beautifully mottled plumage, and figure 4 a small pale bird resting on the ground below. These were the familiar summer visitors of every German and Austrian village, and the little scenes of nests on walls make this a charming plate.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747 to 1822) began his Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in Weimar in 1790 as a picture encyclopaedia for young readers, and over four decades it grew to almost 1,200 plates on plants, animals, peoples, antiquities and the sciences. Its success led to other editions, and this sheet comes from the Vienna edition published by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French. The Vienna plates were newly engraved after the Weimar originals, keep the Weimar subject numbering in a heading in German, Latin and French, and carry a volume and plate number in the lower margin, here the mark V.B.9. Vienna volume V follows Weimar volume III, which appeared in 1798, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The plate is signed J. B. Pfitzer at lower right, the name of one of the engravers employed on the Vienna edition. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand color, as the Vienna volumes were issued colored.

A bird plate like this suits a study, library or hallway, and several sheets from the Bilderbuch hang well together in a matching row. For a collector of ornithological prints it is an affordable and characterful example of early nineteenth century natural history teaching.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning and a few spots of foxing in the lower left margin; the image itself is clean.

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