Early 19th-Century Snake Gallery | Seba & Shaw Engravings, Matted Trio - Set of 3

Details

Description

This trio brings together two different stages in the history of illustrated natural science. The large Coluber engraving was published … Read more This trio brings together two different stages in the history of illustrated natural science. The large Coluber engraving was published in John Wilkes’s Encyclopaedia Londinensis in 1810 using imagery from Albertus Seba’s celebrated 18th-century natural-history collection, while the Spectacle Snake and Water-Viper appeared in George Shaw’s General Zoology in 1802.

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DETAILS
• Date || 1802 and 1810
• Publication || General Zoology; Encyclopaedia Londinensis
• Associated Names || Albertus Seba, George Shaw, John Pass
• Subject || American & Egyptian Asps, Spectacle Snake, Water-Viper
• Medium || Engravings on paper; Coluber plate with hand coloring
• Presentation || Custom archival matting in black and muted olive tones
• Set || Three original antique works, sold together

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ABOUT THE WORKS

Seba’s monumental natural-history imagery grew from one of the great European specimen collections of the 18th century, where animals, shells, plants, and other curiosities were recorded in lavish illustrated volumes. Decades later, some of that imagery was republished for English readers in Wilkes’s wide-ranging Encyclopaedia Londinensis. Shaw’s General Zoology approached the same natural world through an ambitious systematic survey of animal species. Bringing the three together creates a small visual history of how snakes were documented and classified around 1800.

The Coluber engraving is double matted in black with a narrow muted olive reveal; the two Shaw engravings are presented in coordinating muted olive archival mats. All three are offered unframed. See less