Chinese Dace and Bream, Antique Fish Chromolithograph, Moscow, 1855
€ 275
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1855
Mapmaker / artist
Stepan Basilewsky, with the figures painted from nature by a Chinese artist
Publisher
Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou, Moscow
Technique
Chromolithograph
Coloring
Printed color
Sheet size
28 × 21 cm (11.0 × 8.3 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14475-1-6
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the right edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.
About this sheet
This is an original antique chromolithographed plate of Chinese fishes, the sixth of the nine plates of Basilewsky's Ichthyographia Chinae Borealis. Two fishes have the plate to themselves, drawn large and named along the foot: the dark dace Leuciscus Aethiops and the deep bodied bream Abramis pekinensis. The sheet is lettered Tabula the sixth for the tenth volume of the Nouveaux Memoires and carries the Bachmann chromolithography line.
The plate belongs to Ichthyographia Chinae Borealis, the account of the fishes of northern China that Stepan Basilewsky wrote in Peking in January 1852 and published in 1855 in the tenth volume of the Nouveaux Memoires of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow. The nine plates were chromolithographed at Moscow by Bachmann from paintings made directly from the fish by a Chinese artist.
With only two figures this is the most open composition in the set and the one that reads most clearly from a distance. Bream and dace were everyday market fish of the Peking rivers, so the plate is a quiet record of what people actually ate. Basilewsky wrote the text in Peking in January 1852 while serving with the Russian ecclesiastical mission, and the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow printed it three years later with these nine chromolithographed plates. Because the paper appeared inside a learned journal rather than as a separate book, individual plates come to the market far less often than those of the well known European fish books. A plate of this kind frames well in plain dark wood and sits happily in a kitchen, a study or a hallway, alone or in a run with its companions.
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the right edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.
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.
