Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Set of 4 Antique Prints of Various Insects Including the Human Flea and Others
€640 ($715, £540, €640)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- Not stated
- Size
- 9.4 × 7.7 in (24 × 19.5 cm)
- Condition
- Good. Wear consistent with age and use. General age-related toning. Minor wear and soiling. Tab VII and LXX show a few small tears. Small pieces of tape on verso, otherwise blank. Please study images carefully.
- Artist or book
- Bertuch
- Section
- Insects and butterflies
- Reference
- f_31079422
Four plates of insects from Friedrich Johann Bertuch's Bilderbuch fur Kinder, the German picture book for children, each an original copper engraving with hand color. The set shows the grain weevil, the human flea, the human louse, the great water scorpion, the Surinam water scorpion, the harlequin beetle and the sabertooth longhorn beetle.
Each plate carries its Latin and German headings at the top, in the style of the Bilderbuch, and is numbered in Roman numerals. On the first, a water scorpion is drawn from above with wings spread and a second from below, in orange and brown. A second plate shows a long-horned harlequin beetle with its patterned wing cases and a ribbed longhorn beetle with red eyes. The third shows the flea much enlarged above the louse, with details of larva, pupa and mouthparts drawn in small circles around them. The fourth plate depicts two weevils with long snouts, one seen from above and one from the underside, together with a tiny figure showing the natural size.
Bertuch (1747 to 1822) was a German publisher and man of arts, best known for his twelve-volume encyclopedia for children, illustrated with 1,200 engraved plates on natural history, science, costume and mythology, published from 1790 to 1830.
