Elieser Bloch Fish Engravings 18th Century Home Decor:

Here are the beautiful Elieser Bloch Fish Engravings.  They will add a classic and modern feel to your home decor.  Published during the 18th Century, in Nuremburg, Germany from 1772-1778, these Elieser Bloch fish engravings are considered the finest of all fish prints ever produced. Hand Colored Copper Plate Engravings. These Fabulous Antique Prints are Elieser Bloch FISH Prints. These rare hand colored antique engravings were produced in Germany from 1772-1778. The fish prints Bloch produced are considered the finest work on the subject. These are hand colored copper plate engravings on hand made hand laid linen rag. The water coloring in the Ichthyology illustrations pictured here, is NO LESS THAN MAGNIFICENT! Each piece measures about 9 1/2 x 16″ Brightly water colored. Please inspect carefully, some have old folds. Click here to contact us.

Antique Elieser Bloch Fish Engravings:

 

The Evolution of Printing…

The history of antique printing methods of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries is very interesting. My website consists of old prints, published in obsolete printing methods, that really do not exist today.  The entire subject revolves about how fast information could be published for readership. Readership in the old days revolved around money and new discoveries, especially in the area pertaining to natural history. If one could discover a new species of fish… Wow! That would boost the desire for information. It had a trickle down effect. Like today, in the OLD days, desire for information lead to wanting more and more information, almost a viscous cycle. Hence the production of publishing. First to publish religious material. Only the high priests could convey the printed messages. This lasted for a long time. Around 1800 or so, more people read. It was fashionable to be educated. Everyone could understand a beautiful illustration. They did not have to understand the words, but it encouraged understanding. Soon, the publications became subscriptions, everyone wanted them. Like today, everyone wants the latest devise. Initially periodical subscriptions were made to those who could afford it: royalty, clergy, noblemen, etc. Who could read? The answer is only the educated, super wealthy, religious, clergy, nobility, etc… Oftentimes on expeditions, specimens were collected and captured, many alive, many did not survive the journeys home, nor the conditions when relocated. Many journeys were three months at sea.  In the 18th and 19th Centuries museums of curiosities became the rage. Hoards of people would rush to museums to see exotic specimens brought home from expeditions of early explorers and naturalists. Royalty, Clergy financed explorations and hence the illustrations, publications that developed from trips. Often times young men, early scientists, aboard ships recorded the natural history sightings they saw along the way. They recorded every detail of the natural history specimens they came across. All of this absolutely fascinated the public. And so the history of illustration, depicting and describing what had been found, along these tremendous explorations was found. How fast the information moved forward can be seen through the history of printing. Exactly as the way things are moving forward these days, so did printing history. It started with very slow laborious hand drawn pages by scribes and monks onto velum, to copper plate engraving on hand made hand laid linen rag paper, and moved forward to faster and faster printing, from lithography, hand colored or not to printing in colors, chromolithography. All driven by readership subscriptions. It all ended about 1900. when photographic printing became the 20th century tool, to today, when everything is digital and untouchable on the internet.
read more about Bloch on Wikipedia