The Grey Gunnard.

Marcus Elieser Bloch. Johan Friedrich August Krueger and Johan Friedrich Henning. The Grey Gunnard. "Trigla Gurnardus. Der graue Seehahn. The Grey Gurnard. Le Gurneau." Berlin. M.E. Bloch. 1782-1784 & 1785-1795
Copper engraving of the Grey Gurnard from Bloch's "Oeconomische Allgemeine Natur-geschichte der Fische." Plate LVIII (58). Title/ Species name in Latin, German, French and English. Original old hand colour. Cross section of fish printed in black. Dark impression; bright and clean; light toning to edges of page. Printed on laid paper with watermark.

Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799)
was a German medical doctor and naturalist. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century.
Bloch was one of the earliest students of fish to publish a series of fish prints, and his work remained a primary source for the next century.
Between 1782 and 1795 he published his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische, a 12-volume, beautifully illustrated comprehensive work on fishes. The first three volumes describe fishes in Germany and were entitled Oeconomische Naturgeschichte der Fische Deutschlands, the remaining volumes dealt with fishes from other parts of the world and were entitled Okonomische Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische. His descriptions of German fish was reliable and thorough, but his illustrations of foreign fishes were subject to many of the misconceptions that filtered through the great body of travel literature during the eighteenth century. Thus later viewers are presented with a range of pictures with exacting accuracy or enticing imagination

"In the literature of ichthyology, Bloch's descriptive and richly illustrated Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische is one of the high points, both graphically and taxonomically." (Ellen B. Wells).

The work describes and illustrates the fishes of the world in a superb hand colouring, sometimes heightened with silver and gold and/or Arabic Gum to accentuate the metallic sheen of the fish scales. It is the most beautifull book on fishes ever published. The drawings were primarily done by Johan Friedrich August Krueger and Johan Friedrich Henning.

His labour on this work occupied a considerable portion of his life, and is considered to have laid the foundations of the science of ichthyology. The publication was encouraged by a large subscription, and it passed rapidly through five editions in German and in French. Bloch made little or no alteration in the systematic arrangement of Peter Artedi and Carl Linnaeus, although he was disposed to introduce into the classification some modifications depending on the structure of the gills, especially on the presence or absence of a fifth gill, without a bony arch. To the number of genera before established, he found it necessary to add nineteen new ones, and he described 176 new species, many of them inhabitants of the remotest parts of the ocean, and by the brilliancy of their colours, or the singularity of their forms, as much objects of popular admiration as of scientific curiosity.
Nissen 'Schöne Fischbücher' 23; Nissen ZBI, 415. 210 by 375mm (8¼ by 14¾ inches).   ref: 2699  €250