Date of Printing: 1862 • Medium: Lithograph (hand colored) • Subject Category: Natural History - Birds • Signed: Plate signed, Lower Right • Period Created: Romantic (1800 - 1899) • Plate Size HxWxD cm: N/A • Leaf Paper Size HxW cm: 23 x 30 • Style: FOLIO Original Vintage • Print on Verso: Blank on verso • Condition: Excellent, with minor specs and spotting • Edition Type: 1st Edition - Limited • Paper Type: Woven • Framed: Print only
A beautiful hand-colored Leopold Joseph Fitzinger print, from his "Naturgeschichte der Vögel" (Natural History of Birds) published by Kaiserlich Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna, 1862
Condition: Excellent. Top margin has binding. Please see photos. Rarity: Very Rare
Leopold Josef Fitzinger (1802-1884) was a physician, a naturalist and a zoologist whose contributions to the field of biology were honored by academies in Vienna, Naples, Philadelphia and numerous scholarly societies. At the age of 15 he arrivedat the Natural History Museum of Vienna as an unpaid trainee with organizing the reptile and fish collections at at time when the institution was reshaping itself from a royal collector's cabinet to a scientific research institution. Four years later he accepted a position as secretary to the Lower Austrian legislature, while continuing to attend to the collection. His most significant scientific contributions were a series of books classifying reptiles, birds and amphibians, published between 1826 and 1861, as well as a catalogue of mammals, reptiles and fishes native to the Archduchy of Austria. Fitzingers name was given to scores of newly discovered species, including the bow-footed gecko, the narrow-mouthed toad and Lara's ancestors, which were discovered in 1843. Fitzinger obtained a permanent position as a curator of the reptile and mammal collection of the "Imperial and Royal Zoological Court Cabinets" from 1844 to 1861 and died twenty three years later at the age of 82.