Rattlesnake with Its Rattle, Antique Bertuch Print, Vienna, circa 1805

About this sheet

This antique rattlesnake print shows a coiled rattlesnake with its rattle raised, a separate study of the rattle and a second dark snake, on an original hand coloured plate from the Vienna edition of Bertuch's Bilderbuch headed Amphibien V.

The rattlesnake lies in a wide coil, its banded brown body ending in the segmented rattle, and the engraver has added a detached rattle beside it so that young readers could see how the horny rings fit together. Below, a dark snake with a pale, patterned head winds into an S shape. The rattlesnake of the Americas fascinated European readers, and this is one of the earliest reptile plates in the work.

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 amphibians, a class in which Bertuch, following the naturalists of his day, grouped snakes, lizards, crocodiles, frogs and even seals. The small engraved mark I.B.29 places the sheet in volume 1 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. 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, faint staining in the lower margins and a small edge chip clear of the image; the image itself 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.