Karl Joseph Brodtmann

These are genuine antique prints of animals by Karl Joseph Brodtmann (1787 – 1862) who was an accomplished Swiss artist and lithographer, as well as a printmaker, publisher and bookseller who worked in Zurich and Schaffhausen. Brodtmann's natural history lithographs include Heinrich Rudolf Schinz's works on reptiles and birds, published in the early 1830s. Natural history specimens were depicted in hand-coloured sets for the use of biologists and the aristocracy, the latter being not only great patrons of the arts and sciences, but including many who were actively interested in fauna and flora. The artists respected scientific accuracy and often displayed a remarkable sense of aesthetics.