Bird of Paradise - Year 1841
INDIES GALLERY
Bird of Paradise
Publication Paris, 1841 Condition Very good Medium Lithograph with Hand-Finishing Dimensions 42.6 by 33.6 cm (framed) Price 6,800,000 USD.
Lithography (from Ancient Greek λίθος, lithos 'stone', and γράφειν, graphein 'to write') is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German author and actor Alois Senefelder and was initially used mostly for musical scores and maps. Lithography can be used to print text or images onto paper or other suitable material. A lithograph is something printed by lithography, but this term is only used for fine art prints and some other, mostly older, types of printed matter, not for those made by modern commercial lithography. Originally, the image to be printed was drawn with a greasy substance, such as oil, fat, or wax, onto the surface of a smooth and flat limestone plate. The stone was then treated with a mixture of weak acid and gum arabic ("etch") that made the parts of the stone's surface that were not protected by the grease more hydrophilic (water attracting). For printing, the stone was first moistened. The water only adhered to the gum-treated parts, making them even more oil-repellant. An oil-based ink was then applied, and would stick only to the original drawing. The ink would finally be transferred to a blank paper sheet, producing a printed page. This traditional technique is still used for fine art printmaking.
Published in the year 1849 by the famous Charles d'Orbigny, in 'Dictionnaire Universel D’histoire Naturelle ATLAS' (Universal Natural History Dictionary ATLAS), one of the most celabrated works on Natural History from the 19th century. Charles d'Orbigny (1802 – 1857) was a French naturalist who made major contributions in many areas, including zoology (including malacology), palaeontology, geology, archaeology and anthropology. D'Orbigny was born in Couëron (LoireAtlantique), the son of a ship's physician and amateur naturalist. The family moved to La Rochelle in 1820, where his interest in natural history was developed while studying the marine fauna and especially the microscopic creatures that he named "foraminiferans". In Paris he became a disciple of the geologist Pierre Louis Antoine Cordier (1777– 1861) and Georges Cuvier. All his life, he would follow the theory of Cuvier and stay opposed to Lamarckism. (The notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck) D'Orbigny travelled on a mission for the Paris Museum, in South America between 1826 and 1833. He visited Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and returned to France with an enormous collection of more than 10,000 natural history specimens. His contemporary, Charles Darwin, arrived in South America in 1832, and on hearing that he had been preceded, grumbled that D'Orbigny had probably collected "the cream of all the good things". Darwin later called D'Orbigny's Voyage a "most important work". They went on to correspond, with D'Orbigny describing some of Darwin's specimens. D'Orbigny died in 1857 in the small town of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, near Paris.
INDIES GALLERY We buy and sell antique maps, prints, books and photographs, dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. With over 25 years of experience in collecting and trading, our total inventory includes over 9500 authentic antiques. Whether you're an experienced collector or a first-time buyer, we offer an extensive collection in all price ranges. Apart from private collectors, our clients include institutions such as the National Museum of Singapore, National Library of Singapore, National Library of Australia, The Louvre Abu Dhabi, University of Leiden, and many others. Based in Singapore & Jakarta