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Hand-Colored Engraving of the American Blue-Winged Teal by Seligmann, ca.1770
€580 ($655, £490, €580)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1770
- Size
- 14.6 × 9.8 in (37 × 25 cm)
- Condition
- Good. Vibrant colors, minimal fading. Paper shows light toning and minor foxing. Some handling marks, mostly outside plate-mark, not affecting image quality.
- Period
- 18th century
- Artist or book
- Mark Catesby
- Section
- Birds
- Reference
- f_42338032
The blue-winged teal, titled "Blaues Americanisches Kriechentlein", in an original hand-colored copperplate engraving after Mark Catesby from Johann Michael Seligmann's Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel, Nuremberg, circa 1770. The plate is numbered "Tab. XCVIII" at the upper right and lettered below with the Latin "Querquedula americana fusca", "N° 98 IV Theil" and the French "Sarcelle brune de l'Amerique", with the credit "M. Catesby ad viv. delin." at the lower left.
The duck stands on a pale, mossy rock above a strip of still water, its head lowered and its bill pointing down toward the rock. The bird is shown in an unusual pose, with its back arched and its body held nearly horizontal. The plumage is brown and gray with fine barring, and the folded wing carries the bright pale blue patch that gives the bird its name, edged below with green and a white bar. The bill is dark with a pinkish edge, the eye is marked with a pale streak, and the webbed feet are gray-green.
The plate is one of many ducks and waterfowl taken from Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, which Seligmann reissued with German, Latin and French captions for readers in Europe.
