KOALA BRUN. Beautiful rare Brown Koala with skull. c1853.

by Werner, Jacques Christophe

Stunning depiction! Large antique print of male Koala.

Superb hand-coloured engraving by Giraud from a drawing by Borromée after a painting by Jacques Christophe Werner (1798-1846) with hand-colour contemporary with publication in Paris c.1853 by Dr James Pochevan (1817-1895) for Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Oceanie, recording the voyage to the South Pole and Oceans, between 1837 and 1850 by Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) in the corvettes Astrolabe and Zelée.

Dumont D'Urville visited Australia during 1826-1827 and again between 1837 and 1840. His account of the second voyage was published in 1842 (text information), 1847 (atlas of voyage charts), and 1853 (natural history illustrations). As this latter voyage visited Port Essington in North Australia, Torres Strait,and Tasmania - none of which are koala habitats - it is most likely that this drawing was made during D'Urville's first voyage, when he visited the coast of New South Wales, including what is now Queensland and the Barrier Reef, during 1826-1827.

Dumont d’Urville was an aristocratic naval commander who was also a keen zoologist and natural historian. Several of the crew on Astrolabe sketched specimens of Australian wildlife, and these sketches were later re-drawn for engraving onto metal plates for Dumont d’Urville’s account of his voyages which was published c1853. The natural history engravings are extremely rare as they did not appear in the second and third published editions of D’Urville’s voyages. D’Urville’s second voyage was the most successful of all French scientific expeditions to the South Seas.

Plate 415 x 280mm (16.5 x 11 inches) with large margins. There is soiling along the lower right edge of page(which will not show when framed), and faint foxing at base of page and right side of this wonderful illustration.