Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/273

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GEORGE MARCGRAVE
267
Fig. 3. Photograph of the Water-color Painting of Narinari.

came to know of them through the preface to Volume VI. of the "Ichthyologie" but as to the fidelity of the reproduction let Cuvier and Valenciennes speak.

Bloch had copied many of these figures in his Ichthyologie, but without seeming to doubt that they were designed by the Prince, and what is more reprehensible in him, in adding or taking away or changing a great many things very arbitrarily.[1]

The set of drawings above referred to are in water colors and are thus labeled in the Royal Library of Berlin: "Brazilianische Naturgegenstände (Collectio rerum naturalium Brasiliæ) in two Bänden. Libri picturati A. 36. 37."

Their authorship and history will be discussed later. Figure three is a photograph of the painting in this collection of the spotted stingray, Narinari. When there is taken into account the fact that this

  1. This was probably written by Valenciennes, who made a special trip to Berlin in 1826 to inspect these paintings.