Megatherium Skeleton Lithograph, Giant Ground Sloth, Brodtmann c.1830
$245 (£185, €220)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1830
- Size
- 10.2 × 12.7 in (26 × 32.2 cm)
- Condition
- Good. Overall good antique condition. Light foxing and age-related spotting visible throughout, consistent with lithographs from circa 1830. Margins intact; no major tears or losses observed.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Mammals
- Reference
- f_48134402
The skeleton of the Megatherium, the extinct giant ground sloth of South America, a lithograph drawn by Karl Joseph Brodtmann after Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, c.1830. The plate is numbered "Pl. 106" and captioned in Dutch, "Skelet van den reusachtigen Luijaard (Megatherium)."
The animal is shown in side view, standing on four heavy limbs with the spine arched over a deep rib cage and the head held low at the right. The huge claws of the feet are drawn in detail, the pelvis is broad and massive, and a cast shadow falls on the plain ground beneath. A small fraction mark is lettered under the body, apparently a scale.
The Megatherium was among the first extinct giant mammals to be reconstructed from fossil bones. Skeletons found in South America in the late 18th century made it one of the best-known animals of the early 19th-century debate about extinction. The plate comes from the Dutch edition of Schinz's illustrated natural history of man and animals, and the printing is in gray tones on cream paper.
