Renard

Renard
Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes  , 1754
733

The book contains 100 plates comprising 460 hand coloured copper engravings. In all, 415 fishes, 41 crustaceans, two stick insects, a dugong and a mermaid are represented. The illustrations in the first part tend to be fairly realistic, but many in the second verge on the surreal. The illustrations have generally been condemned as being crudely drawn but they were - for the most part - made after actual specimens. Renard carefully explains in his introduction that for the first volume he had the images copied exactly from drawings belonging to Mr Baltazar Coyett - the governor and director of Ambon and Banda (1694-1706) - who had the fish captured and painted.

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