Porte-Feuille des Enfans, Bilderbuch für Kinder, by Friedrich Justin Bertuch - 1805: Volume V

Volume 5 only of Friedrich Bertuch's famous Picture-Book for Children, an illustrated encyclopedia for children.

With 100 hand-coloured copperplates. Explanatory text in German and French.

The Picture-Book was published in 12 volumes from 1790 to 1843 and eventually included 1,185 handcoloured copperplates. Bertuch wished to reproduce the magic of discovery, and mixed engravings of plants, animals, shells, minerals, volcanoes and technical inventions in a utopian chaos, so that a child could encounter afresh the wonders of the natural world at the turn of every page.

Although unsigned, the copperplates were overseen by Georg Melchior Kraus and J.H. Lips, after drawings by Th. Götz, C. Graf, C. Horny, Fr. Kaiser, and W. Waitz, and botanicals by Henriette and Conrad Westermayr, F. Götz and C. Ermer.

With roses 9-18, animals 59-74, birds 66-76, insects 32-47, fish, amphibians, worms, fruit, enslaved people and slave ship, ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods 14-22, landscapes, microscopic animals, etc.

Half green leather slightly worn, red and purple leather title labels on spine, marble boards scuffed, a few scattered spots to text, copperplates with fine hand-colour, clean and bright.