Fauna

Wild turkeys walking in front of a rustic wooden barn in a historical Victorian natural history illustration style

The Visual Culture of the American Turkey: Graphic Arts, Chromolithography, and Popular Ephemera in the Late 19th Century

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The iconography of the North American wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) holds a privileged place not only in seasonal folklore but in the evolution of nineteenth-century graphic arts. Far from being merely decorative, imagery surrounding the Thanksgiving tradition served as a mirror for shifting printing technologies, commercial ephemera, and natural history illustration during the Victorian era.

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Vibrant angelfish and various tropical marine species swim through clear turquoise water above a colorful coral reef with pink, yellow, and brown corals.

The Most Fantastical Fish Ever Painted: Louis Renard’s Poissons, Écrevisses et Crabes (1719)

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In 1719, a Franco-Dutch bookseller named Louis Renard published in Amsterdam what would become one of the most extraordinary — and most debated — works of natural history ever printed. Its plates show fish with nearly human lips, crabs with carapaces like ceremonial shields, a unicorn fish, and even a mermaid — and yet modern ichthyologists have identified the genus of nearly every animal depicted.

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Vintage-style bird study scene with watercolor illustrations of colorful birds in an open sketchbook, surrounded by pinecones, pencils, magnifying glass, and old books on a rustic wooden table.

The Father of European Ornithology: Johann Friedrich Naumann and the Art of Knowing a Bird

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Johann Friedrich Naumann spent a lifetime watching birds in the fields and forests of Saxony. In 1841, he and Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert published Naturgeschichte der Vögel in Bildern — hand-coloured copper engravings designed to bring the living forest into the homes and schoolrooms of a generation. This is the story of a man who taught Europe to see its birds.

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A Victorian-era crowd dressed in formal gowns and top hats admires a tall giraffe inside a fenced enclosure at the London Zoo in Regent's Park, with classical pavilion architecture, leafy trees, and a peacock in the foreground.

The Wonder of the Menagerie: London Zoo, the Victorian Imagination, and the Giraffe That Changed Everything

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In 1836, four giraffes arrived at the Zoological Gardens of Regent’s Park and London went wild. This is the story of the Victorian zoo — the wonder it provoked, the science it advanced, and the giraffe named Zarafa who started it all.

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A vintage natural history journal with a turtle illustration from Schöpf’s Naturgeschichte der Schildkröten stands on a desk in a scientist's study, surrounded by specimen jars, an open anatomical book, a brass magnifying glass, inkwell, and cabinet display of reptile skeletons.

The Shell and the Scalpel: Schöpf’s Naturgeschichte der Schildkröten and the Birth of Herpetology

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Johann David Schöpf arrived in North America as a military surgeon during the Revolutionary War and left with the raw material for the most comprehensive study of turtles the world had ever seen. A look at the Naturgeschichte der Schildkröten, the birth of herpetology, and the extraordinary anatomy of the turtle shell.

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Vintage 1930s Swedish classroom scene with a teacher at the chalkboard, students at wooden desks, educational butterfly charts on the wall, and a hardcover butterfly journal on a desk in the foreground.

The Art of Teaching Nature: Max Richter’s 1939 Swedish Butterfly Charts

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In 1939, Swedish publisher Norstedts released a series of school charts documenting the country’s butterflies and insects with scientific precision and artistic beauty. Illustrated by Max Richter, the Insekter skolplansch became enduring masterpieces — and a window into a tradition of natural history education that stretches back to Linnaeus himself.

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Underwater view of European freshwater fish swimming through aquatic plants in a clear river bed, featured in Cyprinids and Salmonids historical illustration article.

Cyprinids and Salmonids: The Golden Age of European Freshwater Fish Illustration, 1902–1913

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In the first decade of the twentieth century, two publications captured the freshwater fish of Europe with chromolithographic precision: Emil Walter’s Unsere Süßwasserfische (Stuttgart, 1913) and Our Country’s Fishes and How to Know Them (London, 1902). Together, they represent the golden age of the natural history identification plate — scientific instrument and aesthetic object in equal measure.

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