bavarikon4UDescription
The 'Natural History of Germany's Birds' is thanks to the Nuremberg teacher Johann Wolf (1765-1824) together with his friend and medical councillor Bernhard Meyer (1767-1836) from Offenbach. Both were very interested in biology and particularly ornithology. The work was based on two text volumes in German and French and a tablet volume. It appeared in 30 instalments from 1805 to 1821. The individual issues were very expensive for the time, so only very few copies were sold. In addition, the offer of a much cheaper and more complete 'Natural History of Germany's Birds' by Johann Andreas Naumann took the market away from the large-format bibliophile work from 1820 onwards. Only 16 units are said to have been sold in total. The extremely rare book has also survived as an instalment work in very different degrees of completeness. The 181 large-format bird copperplates were superbly engraved and drawn in an by the highly talented Nuremberg artists Johann Carl Bock and Ambrosius Gabler (1762-1834) and Johann Mathias Hergenröder from Offenbach. The colouring is both true to nature and carefully executed artistically with tiny strokes and multi-layered, nuanced colour. Aesthetically, it is considered the most beautiful German bird book, to which Goethe also paid enthusiastic tribute. //Author: Siglinde Kurz // Date: 2018