A couple of weeks ago I purchased and quickly sold a pair of twice watercolored Shaw and Nodder 1790s engravings of wonderfully surreal looking sea anemones, then went back to the same seller this week to snap up one more from the same volume, this an equally surreal looking "Streaked Lophius." The hand-colored copperplate engraving comes from George Shaw's renowned The Naturalist's Miscellany, with this plate dated 1794--but here it is the second application of watercolor, several decades later, that makes it especially special, and singular. I know from the dealer that the volume it came from featured annotated endpapers dating the owner's additions to 1859 or prior: it was they who watercolored the background, and inked a frame around the perimeter, and added the hand-written "Streaked Lophius" label below, and maybe they amped up the color a bit elsewhere too. Such that it winds up feeling at least as much a watercolor as an engraving. And what a creature! ! With that black and white spotted tongue my favorite thing of all. Oh the wonders of the world. This is radiant and strange and stunning.
(The Naturalist's Miscellany was a monumental 24-volume work, known for its wide range of birds, reptiles, insects, quadrupeds, sea life, and botanicals. The prints are highly sought after for their extremely decorative and whimsical nature. Fredrick Nodder was the engraver for most of the work. George Shaw was a doctor, Fellow of the Royal Society, co-founder of the Linnean Society, and a zoologist of the British Museum. )
8 3/4" x 5 1/2" paper size. Some toning spots visible just along left border, otherwise very good condition.
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