Knorr, G.
Delices de la nature ou choix de tout ce que les trois regnes de la nature renferment de plus digne des recherches d'un curieux, pour en former un cabinet ouvrage communiqué ci-devant au public par Georg Wolfgang Knorr célébre graveur de Nuremberg continué par ses héritiers avec les descriptions et remarques de Philippe Louis Statius Müller ... revû, corrigé et augmenté d'une préface par Mr. Jean Ernest Emanuel Walch ...traduit de l'allemand par Jaques Frederic Isenflamm. [Hippopotamus].
Nuremberg, les héritiers de feu G. W. Knorr, 1767. Oblong folio (38.0 x 54.5 cm). A very beautiful hand-coloured engraved plate.
A fine, large plate illustrating a hippopotamus in a landscape with a palm tree and pyramid in the far distance. This is plate K.XIII. from the mammal section of the rare first edition of the large format French printing of Knorr's Deliciae Naturae Selectae oder auserlesenes Naturaliencabinet... - a rare, truly great and sumptuously illustrated German natural history book from the 'Golden Age' of southern German printing. The illustrator is not indicated, but apparently he was not familiar with the hippo, and gave the animal a rather "prehistoric" look. Perhaps it was based on a very young animal. This plate is much larger than the plates in Knorr's other works. A clean and brightly coloured plate. Rare. Nissen ZBI, 2227.