Skip to main content
Item #20715 [Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]. Bengt Fredrik FRIES, Carl Ulrich EKSTRÖM, - Wilhelm von WRIGHT, Carl Jacob SUNDEVALL.
[Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]
[Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]
[Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]
[Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]

[Skandinaviens Fiskar, målade efter lefvande exemplar och ritade på sten af Wil. von Wright, med text af B. Fr. Fries [and others]

Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1836-1857]. 1 volume (bound from the 10 original parts), quarto. (11 1/2 x 9 5/8 inches). Upper wrapper to part I bound as title. 63 plates (60 lithographed by Wilhelm von Wright [59 of these hand-coloured], 3 uncoloured engraved plates at the end lettered A-C).

Modern green morocco gilt by Hedberg of Stockholm, covers with double-fillet gilt borders and small cornerpieces with fish motifs (these are repeated on dentelles), spine in six compartments with raised bands, lettered in gilt in the second, the other compartments with repeat tooling in gilt, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, original yellow, orange or light blue paper wrappers bound in (the upper wrapper to part one bound as a title, the others bound at the back, top edges gilt, others uncut, slipcase

Provenance: Emil H. Küsel (etched bookplate)

Very rare work on the fish of Scandinavia: there is only one other copy listed as having sold at auction in the past thirty years.

The chief glory of this work is the series of excellent finely hand-coloured lithographs, the work of Wilhelm von Wright (1810-1887). He was a Finnish-born natural history painter, illustrator and lithographer of rare talent. The middle of three brothers who made their living as painters, illustrators or naturalists, he moved to Stockholm in 1828 to assist his eldest brother Magnus with his work on his Svenska Foglar. The publication of the present work (Wilhelm's masterpiece) began in 1836 and was completed with the help of his younger brother Ferdinand in 1857. One of the great early works on the ichthyology of northern Europe, it was issued in ten parts (including the supplement ) with the plates either uncoloured or finely hand-coloured (as here). Wilhelm von Wright, who had taken Swedish nationality in 1834, married in 1845, settled in Marieberg in Bohuslän, and spent the rest of his working life in Sweden. The text was started by the director of the Natural History Museum in Stockholm Professor Fries and, after his early death, was completed by C.U. Ekström and Fries' successor at the Natural History Museum Dr. Sundevall.

BM (NH) II, p.622; Nissen Fischbücher 56; Nissen ZBI 1435.

Item #20715

Price: $9,000.00