French Zebu Print

This is a great color printed copper engraving on woven paper made in Paris around 1800. A fun plate with superb early color from from Lacépède's " La Menagerie du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle " an important scholarly work of the time and one of the finest examples of 18th century French natural history illustrations. Can't be a common thing to find these days after over 200 years and it being paper. The piece shows two Zebu which is sometimes known as indicine cattle or humped cattle and is a subspecies of domestic cattle originating in South Asia. One is standing still providing a sideway view while the other appears to be walking towards us and providing a frontal view. A nice landscape of dirt, grasses and a tree stump provide a perfect picture. The piece is in decent condition and I took lots of pictures since I don't know much about this sort of thing. The edges are rough but once it is framed with a nice mat it will look superb. None of the damage will show then as none enters the part framed by a thin black line. The paper size is about 13.25 inches wide by 19.75 inches tall. The plate mark size is 10.625 inches wide by 15.5 inches and the thin black framed area is 14.25 inches wide by 8.75 inches plus another inch underneath where all the info is written. It has Le Zebu Sans Cornes as well as Huilieme de la Grandeur under it and the artist infos are Peint par Marechal, Grave par Miger and something in the center I cannot quite make out see pics. That is all the info I have. Superb and fun piece that needs a good home :) Please email me for more information or other pictures.

A bit more about the artists and the original work: A professor of zoology at the Museum of Natural History, the French naturalist Bernard-Germain-Étienne Delaville, Comte de Lacépède (1756-1825) was a versatile and precocious scholar who published a number of books on zoology, physics, and music. He was greatly influenced by the pioneering naturalist Georges Louis Marie Leclerc, comte de Buffon, whom he succeeded as Intendant at the Jardin du Roi, which later became the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793. During his tenure, Lacépède completed a comprehensive study of amphibians and reptiles, Historie Naturelle des Quadrupèdes Ovipares et des Serpens , which was published as a supplement to Buffon's magnum opus on animal classification Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière . In 1800-1, he published the first edition of La Menagerie du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle , a thorough survey of the various species of quadrupeds, reptiles and amphibians in the impressive collection of the Museum of Natural History. This magnificent work was comprised of descriptive text written by Lacépède and his colleague Georges L. C., Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) as well as a number of finely rendered plates after the most eminent natural history artists of the period, Nicolas Maréchal (1753-1803), Nicolas Huet (1770-1830) and Léon de Wailly (1801-1824). Painted from life on vellum, these beautifully detailed illustrations faithfully captured the appearance of the wondrous animals in the Paris menagerie. A pupil of J. G. Wille and C. N. Cochin, Simon Charles Miger (1736-1820) was a royal academician and a talented engraver, who executed numerous portraits and natural history plates.