About this sheet
This antique natural history print shows a grizzly bear, an American black bear, a raccoon, a dog, a red fox, a wolf and a striped hyena, an original plate from C. F. A. Kolb's Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere, published in Stuttgart by Hoffmann circa 1890. Two bears dominate the upper half of the composition, a raccoon climbs a tree to the left, and a hound, a fox, a wolf and a striped hyena gather around a skull in the foreground.
The sheet is lettered 1. Abtheilung and Säugethiere 3. Blatt at the head, and every animal is numbered and named beneath the image in German Fraktur with its Latin name, here Grauer Bär, Schwarzer Bär, Waschbär, Hund, Fuchs, Wolf and Gestreifte Hyäne. The grizzly is labeled Grauer Bär with the old name Ursus ferox, a detail that places the plate firmly in the natural history of its time and appeals to collectors of North American wildlife.
Carl Friedrich August Kolb designed his Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere as an Anschauungs Unterricht für Schule und Haus, an object lesson for school and home, and the title page of this second edition announces 123 colored figures on 18 double folio plates together with 63 woodcuts in the text. The publisher was the Hoffmann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung of Wilhelm Nübling in Stuttgart, and the plates were printed by color lithography, a process that allowed German publishers of the later nineteenth century to issue large, bright teaching images at a price schools and families could afford. Kolb arranged the mammals in systematic order across the series, so each sheet brings together related animals from several continents in a single imagined landscape. The grouping of bears with dogs and hyenas reflects the carnivore sequence that runs through several consecutive sheets of the book.
With its broad double page format and lively color, this chromolithograph suits a study, a library, a child's room or a natural history wall, and it can be grouped with other plates from the same series to build a set.
The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a faint center fold as issued and minor spotting and soiling in the margins; the image is clean.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
