SOWERBY - CONCHOLOGY: MACTRA - SALTWATER EDIBLE CLAMS shell print 1855

This very beautiful Mactra plate of saltwater edible clams was illustrated with original handcolour by the conchological artist, George Brettingham Sowerby (1812 -1884).

It appears in volume eight of the magnificent "Conchologia Iconica or Illustrations of Mulluscous Animals," written and published by Lovell Reeve in 1855.

This monumental twenty volume work, containing 2700 coloured lithographic plates was published in London between 1843 and 1878

"Lithography had pleasing results when applied to the illustration of at least the larger species in that mammoth compendium of shell portraits, the Conchologia Iconica of Reeves and Sowerby, a book which no customer was able to own in its entirety until thirty five years after its first instalment in 1843."

S. Peter Dance, The Art of Natural History. Animal Illustrators and their Work. NewYork 1978