Le Créole, Le Frangimine - François-Nicolas Martinet - ca. 1780

Once, goldfish were highly prized domestic animals, coveted by emperors and nobles—exotic symbols of good fortune. Yet anything can lose its charm when it becomes easily accessible.

Species within this family are generally brown or silver and reproduce rapidly, which is why they were long bred for food in China.
Between the 9th and 10th centuries, mutated carp began to appear, displaying bright yellow-orange scales. These “golden” fish were preserved and bred as ornamental animals. During the Song dynasty, in the 12th century, no one outside the imperial family was permitted to raise them, as yellow was the imperial color.

Histoire naturelle des dorades de la Chine (1780) was the first monograph on goldfish published in Europe, at a time when these fish were still associated with Eastern exoticism in the Western imagination.
More than a true natural history, was based on a scroll of paintings and notes sent to Louis XV’s court minister, Henri-Léonard Bertin, by two Chinese monks with whom he maintained close contact: Aloys Ko (Gao Ren) and Étienne Yang (Yang Zhide).

The forty-eight plates that follow the text depict eighty-eight species of fish, beautifully hand-painted in gold, green, brown, and blue, floating ethereally against “watery” cyan backgrounds. These illustrations were produced by the French court engraver François-Nicolas Martinet (1725–1804), whose expertise ranged from ornithological art to portraiture. The delicate style of the plates echoes the Chinese paintings that inspired them.

Histoire naturelle des dorades is now an extremely rare work, with only a few first editions still in existence.

The book was conceived as a luxury object, the result of international connections and the resources of the French court—an institution that would be abruptly dismantled just nine years after its publication with the outbreak of the French Revolution.

- Choice of Natural or black pinewood frames
- Printed on 250 g/m² photo paper with Matte finish
- Protective acrylic glass and ready-to-hang hardware included
- Vibrant, high-resolution prints using modern printing techniques

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