Whip Scorpion, Tarantula and Red Mite, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1820

This hand colored copper engraving of exotic arachnids, with whip scorpions, a hairy tarantula type spider, a long legged harvestman, a red mite and a banded spider, comes from the later Vienna edition of Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch. In the Bilderbuch spiders, scorpions and mites were still classed among the insects, hence the heading.

The heading reads Insecten XCI and Insectes XCI, the later plates of the series dropping the Latin, and the mark at lower right reads XIX.B.32. The six numbered figures include a whip scorpion with broad pincers and long feelers, a second with a tail, a furry brown spider, a harvestman on stilt like legs left largely uncolored, a scarlet mite and a spider with yellow and black banded legs, with details of legs and palps lettered A to D.

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 XIX, which places it circa 1818 to 1822.

A plate like this suits a study, a library or a collection of early natural history, and it hangs well in a group with other Bertuch insect and microscope plates, where the variety of subjects and the consistent format of the series come into their own.

The sheet is unevenly toned with mottled staining across the image and has small binding holes along the right margin; the figures are still clear and the coloring legible.

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