Jacanas and Wading Birds with Long Toes, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This antique bird print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows jacanas, the long toed lily trotters of tropical wetlands, together with other small wading birds. The heading reads Vögel LIX and the plate is signed by Jacob Xaver Schmuzer above the Vienna mark VIII.B.6.

Figures 1 to 3 are jacanas, standing on marshy ground with their extraordinarily long toes spread out, which let them walk across floating leaves; one has a bright yellow throat and a red bill. Figures 4 and 5 are small, short tailed marsh birds of the rail kind, and figure 6 is a stout white bird with a bare red face and pink legs standing on a rock, probably a sheathbill from the southern oceans. The plate shows well how the Bilderbuch brought together birds of similar habit from across the world.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747 to 1822) began his Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in Weimar in 1790 as a picture encyclopaedia for young readers, and over four decades it grew to almost 1,200 plates on plants, animals, peoples, antiquities and the sciences. Its success led to other editions, and this sheet comes from the Vienna edition published by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French. The Vienna plates were newly engraved after the Weimar originals, keep the Weimar subject numbering in a heading in German, Latin and French, and carry a volume and plate number in the lower margin, here the mark VIII.B.6. Vienna volume VIII follows Weimar volume IV, which appeared in 1802, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The plate is signed Jacob X. Schmuzer at lower left, for the Viennese engraver Jacob Xaver Schmuzer. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand colour, as the Vienna volumes were issued coloured.

A bird plate like this suits a study, library or hallway, and several sheets from the Bilderbuch hang well together in a matching row. For a collector of ornithological prints it is an affordable and characterful example of early nineteenth century natural history teaching.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a stain in the upper right corner of the margin and a few spots; 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.