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Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Antique Hand-Colored Engraving of the American Pelican, 19th Century
€540 ($605, £455, €540)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- Not stated
- Size
- 14.6 × 9.8 in (37 × 25 cm)
- Condition
- Very good. Vibrant colors, minimal fading. Paper shows light toning and minor foxing in margins. Edges sharp; no tears, no folds. Slight handling marks, mostly outside platmark, not affecting image quality.
- Section
- Birds
- Reference
- f_42296292
The American pelican, as Seligmann's engraver titled it, in an original hand-colored copperplate engraving from Johann Michael Seligmann's Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel, an eighteenth-century Nuremberg collection of foreign and rare birds. The plate is numbered "Tab. LXII" at the upper right, titled "Der Americanische Pelican" at the top, and lettered below with the Latin "Pelicanus americanus", the French "Pelican americain" and "N° 62 IV Theil", with the credit "M. Catesby ad vivum delin." at the lower left.
A single large bird stands in profile facing left on a small patch of green ground, drawn tall and upright on long dark legs with webbed feet. Its plumage is white on the breast and belly, with a long band of glossy dark green and brown feathers along the wing, and the neck and head are brown and tan with a dark face. The bill is long and curved, in pale brown. Behind the bird, a fine outline drawing of a bird's head and its great bill, with the eye and nostril marked, is shown to scale as a second study, a feature of this plate that is not found on most others in the series.
The drawing is by Mark Catesby, whose Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands supplied many of the American birds in Seligmann's collection.
