Rare 1655 MERIAN & JONSTON Colored Folio Engraving HISTORIA NATURALIS: TAURUS OX

Description: Rare 1655 Hand-Colored Copper-Plate Engraving from: THEHISTORIAE NATURALISDe Quadrupedibus Libri Cum Aeneis Figuris JOHANNES JONSTINUS MEDICINAE : DOCTOR concinnavit FRANCOFURTI AD MOENUM impensis HAEREDUM MATH. MERIANI Tab : XIII Taurus Castratus Bos, Kuh und Kalb About the Volumes: In the middle of the 16th century, the Doctor and Renaissance Man, Johnnes Jonston wrote his magnum opus, an encyclopedic overview of the history of animals, which was considered to be the standard work of zoology for a century.For his HISTORIAE NATURALIS, Jonston planned a comprehensive illustrated depiction of the world of animals, plants, and people.Titled in short Historia Naturalis Animalium, it collects numerous descriptions of animals in five books. Tables with wonderful copperplate engravings by Matthäus Merian the Younger illustrate the zoological work.In the first volume of the work, which arose in the year 1650, Jonston concerns himself with fish and aquatic mammals. This “most broadly disseminated zoological handbook” experienced numerous republications and translations into other languages, still offering a magnificent and often curious glimpse into the world of zoology today.The Historia Naturalis animalium was printed from 1650 to 1653 in the publishing house of Matthäus Merian the Younger in Frankfurt am Main.Merian (1621–1687), who took over the famous atelier of his father Matthäus Merian the Elder, as copperplate engraver was also responsible for the artistic design of the editions. The marvelous illustrations, colorfully illustrated moreover, lend the sophisticated publication its final touches and are surely a reason for the exceptional popularity of the Historia Naturalis across Europe.Volume 5, QUADRUPEDIBUS (Quadrupeds), contained 80 numbered plates, called Tables, of which this plate is Tab. II. About the Author:John Jonston (1603-1675) was a Polish-born of Scottish descent, Doctor of Medicine and a well-travelled and prolific writer on natural history, who published numerous works, including "Historiae naturalis" in Frankfurt, Germany, from 1646 to 1662. He authored over fifteen works on nature and medicine. The most famous was this one, Historiae naturalis, about the animal kingdom. It had these gorgeous engravings by Matthaus Merian. About the Artist:Matthäus Merian the Younger (1621–1687) was a Swiss engraver and portrait painter, son of Matthäus Merian der Ältere (or "Matthew", "the Elder", or "Sr."; 1593-1650 who was a Swiss-born engraver in Frankfurt, where he also ran a publishing house, a member of the patrician Basel Merian family, father to Maria Sybilla Merian, the famed Natural History Artist). The Younger was the half-brother of Maria Sybilla Merian, who is famous for her magnicent Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium of1705, and the brother of Caspar Merian, who also worked on these volumes. About the Plates:Every part of these prints was made by hand: Hand drawn & engraved on Copper or steel which was hand-mined, smelted & rolled, printed onto handmade cotton rag paper, inked & colored with hand-ground pigments individually by hand, & they were usually hand sewn into handmade leather-bound books.A set of the full volumes of this work containing all the plates is on the market listed at $24,000 USD. Condition:Appears to be in good condition for a centuries-old engraving. The hand-coloring appears to remain sharp & brilliant. Typical age-toning & character for a print this old. Repair at the bottom edge appears to be expertly done. Please peruse the detailed photos. Printed on light Chain-Lined paper with plate-marks.These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book & handled as a page in a volume, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.Text Page(s): This one doesn't come with text page(s). (Please note, the scans of the title page is included for reference, it's not part of this listing...) About These Creatures:An Ox, also known as a bullock (in British, Australian, and Indian English), is a bovine (Cow, Bull), trained and used as a draft animal.Oxen are used for plowing, for transport (pulling carts, hauling wagons and even riding), for threshing grain by trampling, and for powering machines that grind grain or supply irrigation among other purposes. Oxen may be also used to skid logs in forests, particularly in low-impact, select-cut logging.Oxen are thought to have first been harnessed and put to work around 4000 BC.The Mighty Aurochs (Bos primigenius) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to 71" in bulls and 61" in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene; it had massive elongated and broad horns that reached 31" in length. The aurochs was part of the Pleistocene megafauna. It probably evolved in Asia and migrated west and north during warm interglacial periods. The oldest known aurochs fossils found in India and North Africa date to the Middle Pleistocene and in Europe to the Holstein interglacial. As indicated by fossil remains in Northern Europe, it reached Denmark and southern Sweden during the Holocene. The aurochs declined during the late Holocene due to habitat loss and hunting, and became extinct around the 17th century.Size: 15" x 8-1/2" inches approximately. Shipping: Multiple prints combine into one USPS Flat-Rate envelope. If you'd like to combine & need more time to choose, please send a message & we'll do our best to oblige. If you're assessed multiple shipping for one combined package, we'll endeavor to refund any overage asap. Thanks for Visiting!

Price: 69 USD

Location: Great Barrington, Massachusetts

End Time: 2024-08-21T16:30:41.000Z

Shipping Cost: 10.15 USD