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 7 Antique Prints of an Egyptian Cobra and other Snakes and Reptiles
€890 ($995, £755, €890)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- Not stated
- Size
- 9.2 × 6 in (23.4 × 15.3 cm)
- Condition
- Good. General age-related toning. Minor wear and soiling. With original protective sheet attached. Blank verso. Please study image carefully.
- Section
- Reptiles and amphibians
- Reference
- f_34631472
- Colour
- Hand coloured
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Seven plates of snakes and lizards from the Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle, edited by Charles Henry Dessalines d'Orbigny and published in 1861. Each sheet is a hand-colored engraving headed "Dict. Univ. d'Hist. Nat." and "Reptiles", with the species named in French and Latin beneath.
Most plates pair two animals, one above the other, in a small landscape. The set includes an Egyptian cobra with its hood spread in yellow-green, a boa-like snake coiled on a branch, a slender green snake in foliage, and banded snakes with red, black and white rings. Smooth-bodied lizards and slow-worms fill several plates, and a pair of heavy-bodied vipers with dark diamond markings appears on another.
The prints are a good sample of how a French natural history of the 1860s organized the reptiles by order, with each animal drawn with a few plants or rocks to set the scene.
D'Orbigny was a French botanist and geologist who identified many of the flowering plant species returned to France from his brother's collecting journeys through South America.
