Antoine Jean Baptist Vaillant (1817-1852)

Antoine Jean Baptist Vaillant was an artist at thé Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He illustrated numerus zoological works. Among the herpetological works he illustrated were the turtles and crocodiles in Auguste Dumeril's (1852-1856) Description des Reptiles nouveaux ou imparfaitement connus de la collection du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle and Alphonse Guichenot (1850) Reptiles et poissons. Exploration scientifique de l'Algérie pendant les années 1840-1842.

This original water color is of Daboia mauritanica (Dumeril & Bibron, 1848) is from Guichenot's Algeria work. It is interesting to note the overall lack of detail in this watercolor. There is a small section of the neck with scales drawn in and a small section of just the scale detail separate from the snake. I didn't scan the back of this watercolor, but it has several pencil sketches, mostly of mollusks.

The final (published) version of this plate in Guichenot is also illustrated here. You can see the much greater detail with the entire body covered with scales. There are also two illustrations of the head which were not included on the watercolor, but were presumably drawn elsewhere. It would be interesting to know how much Vaillant oversaw the engraving. This plate includes credit to Visto sculps (the engraver), this was J. P. Visto (Vistau) and N. Remond imp. (the printer).

Apparently the plate was printed in 1848, two years before the official publication date of 1850. Dumeril and Bibron wrote their description in 1848 and Gray cites their description in his synonymy of Clotho? mauritanica, causing a bit of confusion for a while since Gray's description was published before Dumeril and Bibron's description that he cited. Today Dumeril and Bibron are credited with the original description. (see the Reptile Database: http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Daboia&species=mauritanica)

For more images of A.J.B. Vaillant's published illustrations see: http://www.photo.rmn.fr/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2CO5PCU49K8R#/SearchResult&VBID=2CO5PCU49JYQ

Watercolors by Paulus Knogh (1737-1802)

After reading Art and Nature I started thinking about the original art that I have - I don't have many. I may as well try to post the few that I do have. The oldest original art that I have are two watercolors by Paulus Knogh (1737-1802). Knogh was a Dutch mathematician and physician who was also an artist and art collector. As an artist he specialized in drawing insects and amphibians. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a few of his insect watercolors on their website.

To me these paintings are very reminiscent of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). As can be seen by his work on the Rijkmuseum website, Knogh was certainly aware of Merian's work. Another artist who was heavily influenced by Merian was August Johan Roesel von Rosenhof (1705-1759). His first book was on insects - Today he is often considered one of the fathers of German Entomology. His second book was on frogs and is still considered to have among the best illustrations of frogs ever produced. Here is one of the illustrations from Rosel von Rosenhof's book. It appears to me that Knogh also knew of this work (I plan to discuss both Merian and Roesel von Rosenhof in future postings). In these pictures you can see the Knogh paintings seem more realistic and finely painted than the Roesel von Rosenhof - but keep in mind the Knogh are original watercolors and the Roesel von Rosenhof is a hand-colored engraving from his book.

WorldCat lists two books published by Knogh. One of them, published in 1803, Museum Knoghianum continens Praeparata anatomica ... Kabinet van naturalien has a title that suggests these painting may have been completed as part of this book. Unfortunately I am unable to locate a copy of this book or even a complete citation to indicate if it has any plates.