Green Turban Tropical Shells 1991 5.25" x 7.5" Shell Print F.M. Regenfuss #00

A colour print, rescued from a disbound book of Shell prints from 1991, with unrelated text on the reverse. Original printing date 1758, this is a reprint.

Suitable for framing, the image size is approx 5.25" x 7.5" or 13.3cm x 19cm edge to edge plus small border.

This is a vintage print not a modern copy and can show signs of age or previous use commensurate with the age of the print. Please view any scans as they form part of the description.

All pictures will be sent bagged and in a board backed envelope for protection in transit.

While every care is taken to ensure my scans or photos accurately represent the item offered for sale, due to differences in monitors and internet pages my pictures may not be an exact match in brightness or contrast to the actual item.

Text taken from the opposite page. Please note this cannot be supplied with the print due to being on the reverse side of the previous print. Any spelling errors are due to the OCR program used.

Green Turban and other Tropical Shells (1758)
OREILLE DE GANT (now Green Turban, Turbo Inarmoratus) (second row, two outer figures) and other Tropical Shells. Hand-coloured engraving, pl. 5 from F.M. Regenfuss's Choix de Coquillages et de Crustacés &c, 1758.

In 1748 the German artist and engraver Franz Michael Regenfuss extolled the virtues of shell collecting and invited subscriptions for a publication which was to contain a scientific text and many illustrations. Ten years later, with the help of Danish royalty and nobility, the Choix de Co quit/ages was published, the text (written by Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein) being printed in French and German, the twelve plates having been engraved from the author's own drawings and coloured mostly by his wife. The book was an immediate success, the composition and colouring of the plates and their sheer size - in surface area it exceeds all other books devoted exclusively to shells - making it a luxurious and exclusive production. Undoubtedly the Choix de Co quillages was intended to satisfy the eyes as much as the minds of those who purchased it.
Speaking about the Green Turban, the author says "They are generally found with a calcareous crust, particularly the larger ones. This can be scraped off or dissolved by aqua fortis [nitric acid], after which the shells should be washed. The Chinese, with whom this snail is found in great abundance, cut off the second whorl close to the mouth, then they grind the shell all around the middle down to nacre, leaving four small projections as feet, and sell them as salt cellars to the Europeans . . . It occurs in China, Java and other places in the East Indies in large quantities. It keeps to the shores where steep rocky coast prevails, which makes fishing difficult; but where they occur they do so in large quantities." Because of the difficulty of getting together fine and rare specimens, scattered in various private collections, Regenfuss did not attempt to arrange his figures in any systematic order, as he wanted his plates to be published without delay. Although he had completed original drawings for a second volume and part of a third, which he intended to bring out as soon as engravings of them could be coloured, no further parts were ever published.