Kingfisher and Mandarin Duck, Antique Bertuch Print, Vienna, circa 1805

About this sheet

This antique bird print shows a large kingfisher and a mandarin duck drake, together with a slender green bird, on an original hand coloured plate from the Vienna edition of Bertuch's Bilderbuch headed Voegel LXIV.

At the top a heavy kingfisher with a bright orange bill, dark cap and violet wings sits on a branch. In the middle a slender green bird with a long barred tail reaches for a passing insect, and below stands the mandarin duck drake, instantly recognisable by its orange ruff, crest and the upright sail feathers on its back. The mandarin duck, native to eastern Asia, was still a rarity in European collections at the time and made a showpiece for the plate.

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 birds, which Bertuch treated as one of the richest subject classes of the whole work. The small engraved mark VIII.B.31 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, coloured by hand with watercolour in the manner of the Weimar original. The plate is signed by Jacob Xaver Schmuzer, one of the Viennese engravers who worked on this edition. 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, a few small stains beside figure 3 and short edge tears clear of the image.

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.