Cross Fox and Spotted Hyena, Antique Bertuch Print, Vienna, circa 1812

This antique mammal print shows the cross fox and the spotted hyena, on an original hand coloured plate from the Vienna edition of Bertuch's Bilderbuch headed Vierfuessige Thiere LXXVIII, the quadrupeds.

The cross fox, a colour form of the red fox with a dark stripe down the back and across the shoulders, walks across the upper half of the plate with its bushy tail extended. Below it the spotted hyena stands with lowered head, its sandy coat covered in bold black spots and its shaggy mane and heavy shoulders well observed. Both animals stand on grassy patches, and the strong colouring makes this one of the more striking mammal plates of the later volumes.

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 quadrupeds, the four footed animals that open the natural history sections of the work. The small engraved mark XIII.B.23 places the sheet in volume 13 of the Vienna edition, which corresponds to the seventh volume of the Weimar original, dated 1810, so this Vienna plate cannot be earlier than that.

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, a small dark smudge in the upper right margin and a minor edge crease; the image 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.