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Although he was no naturalist, and never left Holland,
the Dutch Huguenot publisher Louis Renard succeeded in turning a motley collection of drawings from the East Indies into one of the
rarest and most fantastic evocations of exotic aquatic life ever published.
It is essentially a picture book based on original drawings by Samuel
Fallours, an artist in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
The 460 brilliantly colored engravings display a dazzling multitude
of fishes and crabs from the South Moluccas, along with a dugong, two
stick-insects, and a mermaid (whose physical reality is “positively
asserted” in the text).
Renard’s book is the closest approximation we have to an eighteenth-century scuba diver’s underwater photographs. The book was first published in 1719. After Renard’s death, the plates came into the possession of another publisher, who reissued the collection in 1754. This Octavo Edition reproduces one of the thirty-four known copies of this second edition, with magnificently hand-colored plates.
The original book imaged for this digital edition:
15 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches (403 x 270 mm)
Renard’s book is the closest approximation we have to an eighteenth-century scuba diver’s underwater photographs. The book was first published in 1719. After Renard’s death, the plates came into the possession of another publisher, who reissued the collection in 1754. This Octavo Edition reproduces one of the thirty-four known copies of this second edition, with magnificently hand-colored plates.
The original book imaged for this digital edition:
15 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches (403 x 270 mm)
Tree Lobsters
The 460 brilliantly colored etchings found in Louis Renard’s Poissons offer us as much art as they do science. The colors attributed to various sea creatures were almost completely arbitrary, despite the authors’ assurances of their authenticity. And many of the descriptions that accompany them are equally artistic – for example a spiny lobster that lives in the mountains and climbs trees. As both science and art, Renard’s Poissons remains one of the rarest natural history books ever published.
The 460 brilliantly colored etchings found in Louis Renard’s Poissons offer us as much art as they do science. The colors attributed to various sea creatures were almost completely arbitrary, despite the authors’ assurances of their authenticity. And many of the descriptions that accompany them are equally artistic – for example a spiny lobster that lives in the mountains and climbs trees. As both science and art, Renard’s Poissons remains one of the rarest natural history books ever published.
ThereĦs a Mermaid in My Bathtub
Louis Renard’s Poissons is a series of 460 brilliantly colored etchings, published in 1719 and again in 1754. Renard goes out of his way to assert the authenticity of his work, often by citing Samuel Fallours, whose drawings were the basis of the etchings. None of these assertions is more fantastic than that concerning the mermaid, whose upper half is described and depicted as resembling a female, complete with arms, breasts, and long hair. Such detail could be observed, the authors further assert, because the creature spent four days in Fallours’ house in a tub of water.
Louis Renard’s Poissons is a series of 460 brilliantly colored etchings, published in 1719 and again in 1754. Renard goes out of his way to assert the authenticity of his work, often by citing Samuel Fallours, whose drawings were the basis of the etchings. None of these assertions is more fantastic than that concerning the mermaid, whose upper half is described and depicted as resembling a female, complete with arms, breasts, and long hair. Such detail could be observed, the authors further assert, because the creature spent four days in Fallours’ house in a tub of water.
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