Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look, drawn to its real size; it is sold unframed unless the description says otherwise.
Flora and Fauna
Tanagers and Java Sparrow Songbirds, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805
£250
$335 · €300
Original print, not a reproduction
Ships worldwide from the Netherlands, insured and tracked. 14-day returns.
- Date
- circa 1801-1807
- Technique
- Copper Engraving
- Coloring
- Original hand color
- Condition
- Good. Good condition for its age. Light toning; minor wear and a few small nicks at the right edge, clear of the image. Please review the images for further condition details.
- Island
- Java
- Collection
- Flora and Fauna
- Period
- Raffles to the Cultivation System, 1800 to 1849
- Stock no.
- BG-14336-31
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.
This antique bird print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows five brightly colored small songbirds, including the Java sparrow. The heading reads Vögel LXXIII and the Vienna mark X.B.31 is engraved at lower right.
Figure 5 is the Java sparrow, gray with a black head, white cheek and heavy pink bill, a popular cage bird then as now. The other figures include a black bird with an orange head and breast, a pale blue gray bird, a green headed bird with a long orange stripe and a multicolored tail, and a rufous and black bird, all of the tanager and finch type of the tropics. The individual species other than the Java sparrow are not named here, as the companion text is not present. The strong coloring makes this one of the livelier bird plates in the series.
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 X.B.31. Vienna volume X follows Weimar volume V, which appeared in 1805, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand color, as the Vienna volumes were issued colored.
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 and minor edge wear; the image is clean, bright and well preserved.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
