M.E. Bloch: Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische ... 1782-95
This grand work about fish by the physician and naturalist Marcus Elieser Bloch (1783-99) includes 12 text volumes and 4 folios with illustrations containing 432 handcoloured plates. It was for many years the standard work about fish from all the world known at that time and a masterpiece among the scientific, zoological pictorial works from the period. The figure drawings, plates and colouring are of a very high quality. The precious plates were partly financed by sponsors as recorded at a number of the plates. Bloch's original fish collection containing about 1500 specimens was 1810 transferred to the then Berliner Zoologischer Sammlung - today Museum für Naturkunde.
Below a selection of the plates:
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