Frog Print of Cape Dactylethra and Surinam Toad, c.1850, by Orbigny
€ 190
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1850
Sheet size
24.7 × 16 cm (9.7 × 6.3 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-13584-68
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 foxing near upper right and left margins, but central image remains clean and strong. Vivid hand coloring and fine line detail intact. No tears or repairs.
About this sheet
The Surinam toad and an African clawed frog on one plate, "Reptiles Pl. 17," an original hand-colored engraving from the Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle, edited by Charles d'Orbigny and published in Paris around 1850. The plate was drawn by Oudart and engraved by Forget.
The upper figure is "Dactylèthre du Cap (Dactylethra capensis)," a dark gray-blue frog crouched at the edge of a pool, with a large pale leaf behind it. The lower figure is "Pipa americana," the Surinam toad, seen from the side and slightly above, a flat, broad-bodied animal in ochre and brown, its back covered with a pattern of dark pits and its forefeet ending in fine, fringed fingers; it sits in reeds at the water's edge. Both are named at the foot of the sheet under the heading "Ordre des Batraciens," with the groups Anoures and Phrynaglosses indicated.
The Surinam toad, now called Pipa pipa, is a South American species whose females carry their eggs in pockets in the skin of the back. The Cape frog in the upper figure is African, so the sheet combines a New World and an Old World amphibian.
