51 Johann Leonhard Frisch - The Crane - Grus grus - Birds in Germany

This originally hand-coloured engraving is from Johann Leonhard Frisch's Vorstellung der Vogel in Teutschland und Beylaugffig auch Einiger Fremden, mit Ihren Eigenschaften Beschrieben…und Nach Iheren Naturlichen Farben. The work was completed by his son Jodocus Leopold in 1763 and published by Friedrich Wilhelm Birnstiel in Berlin.

Johann Leonhard Frisch led a varied career including being a singer, minister, interpreter for the German army, and a headmaster at a Berlin school. His academic pursuits interested him in natural history and to form a Cabinet of Curiosities from which the illustrations for the work were often drawn. Frisch is credited by some with the discovery of the colour 'Prussian blue', and was responsible for the planting of mulberries on the ramparts of Berlin in a successful attempt to produce silk.

Artist of Maker

Johann Leonhard Frisch

Medium

Engraving

Date

1763