Antique Early 20th Century Butterfly Print 1912

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Original antique lithograph of American Butterflies by Seitz circa 1912. Presented in cream colored matting and a contemporary gold finish … Read more Original antique lithograph of American Butterflies by Seitz circa 1912. Presented in cream colored matting and a contemporary gold finish frame. Measuring overall size 13" x 16".
Friedrich Joseph Adalbert Seitz, (24 February 1860 in Mainz – 5 March 1938 in Darmstadt) was a German physician and entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. He was a director of the Frankfurt zoo from 1893 to 1908.

Translated as "The Macrolepidoptera of the World" this work was published in three language editions, German, English, & French is renowned for its outstanding color plates, some of which required printing from up to 14 different color blocks (including metallic inks), resulting in quality of color printing so excellent that it has remained unsurpassed. But this meticulous chromolithographic printing was incredibly expensive and labor intensive. The project was hugely ambitious - to cover every known species of the World's Macrolepidoptera, - has started in 1904 but it was plagued by setbacks including two World Wars and was never finished, after almost 50 years the project finally came to an end in 1954. The most important collections of butterflies and moths were consulted including those of L. W. Rothschild of Tring, the British Museum, the Paris Natural History Museum. See less