Antique Print of Greenland Shark with Detail Views, Paris, circa 1845
$875 (£660, €780)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1845
- Size
- 13.4 × 19.2 in (34 × 48.7 cm)
- Condition
- Good. Good to very good. Some light foxing is visible, mostly confined to the margins. The main image is clear and the colors remain strong. Plate mark is visible. No restoration or repairs.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Fish and shells
- Reference
- f_45519722
The Greenland shark, an original hand-colored lithograph from the French scientific publication Voyage en Islande et au Groenland, published in Paris around 1845. The plate is lettered "Poissons Pl. 22" at the upper right and "Zoologie" at the top, with the title "La Leiche boréale" below the large figure.
The whole shark, in a soft brownish gray shading to a blue-gray belly, is drawn in profile at the lower part of the sheet, with its short rounded snout and small eye, and the pale gill slits and low fins. Above it three detail studies are set in a row and lettered A, B, C and D: the eye with its parasite attached at A, the rows of teeth of the upper and lower jaws at B and C, and a patch of the rough skin at D, colored in brown and blue. The names of the artist, the engraver and the printer (Langlumé) and the publisher's name Arthus Bertrand are set in the margins.
The shark is now called Somniosus microcephalus, and the plate comes from the zoology volumes of the voyage to Iceland and Greenland, a French government expedition of the late 1830s.
