Dictionnaire des sciences naturelles: Planches Zoologie: Poissons et Reptiles

Very good copy of the Fish and Reptiles part from Cuvier's huge Dictionary of Natural Sciences

Complete with all 125 hand-coloured stipple engraved plates of fish and reptiles

Includes critically endangered species such as the sawfish or carpenter shark, Ganges crocodile or gharial, great crested newt, Mexican axolotl, Martinique lancehead and European eel. Also includes the endangered geometric tortoise and green sea turtle.

All the illustrations by Jean-Gabriel Prêtre, under the direction of Pierre Jean François Turpin, and engraved by Louis Massard, Mlle. Massard, Madame Leroy, Plee, Victor, Joyeau, Louvier, Mlle. Louvier, Forestier, Dion, Prudhon, Guyard, Giraud, etc.

Poissons et Reptiles: Title page, 16pp (tables of plates, index), 85 handcoloured engraved plates of fish, 40 handcoloured engraved plates of reptiles.

Part of Cuvier's massive Dictionary of Natural Sciences that was published in 60 text volumes and 13 plate volumes from 1816 to 1830.

Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (1768-1849) was a Swiss-French natural history painter who illustrated a large number of books for Cuvier, Louis Pierre Vieillot, René Primevère Lesson, Comte de Lacépède, Richard Achille, and many other French zoologists.

Pierre Jean François Turpin (1775-1840) was a French botanist and illustrator. He is considered one of the greatest floral and botanical illustrators during the Napoleonic Era and after.

Brown cloth binding, gilt title on spine, "Library of Congress" endpapers, book block solid. Stipple engraved plates mostly clean apart from overall slight dustiness, but hand-colour vivid and bright.

Very good copy of this increasingly rare series by two giants of natural history illustration.