Monday, December 18, 2006

The Aliens Among Us

Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten a


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten b


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten c


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten d


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten e


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten f


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten g


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten h


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten i


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten j


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten k


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten l


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten m


Schaeffer - Abhandlungen von Insecten n


Jacob Christian Schaeffer (1718-1790) was a german botanist, entomologist, mycologist, ornithologist and the inventor of the washing machine...or so the story goes.

I had in fact been searching around for his 7 volume series on paper making (for anyone in Atlanta, Georgia Tech is giving talks on Schaeffer and papermaking over the next couple of weeks) and got happily sidetracked by his 'aliens' in 'Abhandlungen von Insecten' from the 1760s/1770s.

All the above images are details and come from Université Louis Pasteur Strasbourg. There are 3 volumes. I've kept all 30-odd full plates (about 2 or 3 Mb each) which I might post at some time in the future.

8 comments :

Aeron said...

Very nice, please do post the larger files if you ever get the chance.

Anonymous said...

Thankyou for the comment in my blog, sweetie,

Megan

Anonymous said...

Fine arts, hand arts and others..i like all of them.

But nowadays, i can not find anytime to interest them. Because i am strugling to get our legal worker rights. İf you visit my site you can see everything...thank you so much...

www.sendika.blogspot.com

sincereley

Khthonian said...

Hello. I don't not know if you respond to comment, but I found this through BoingBoing (as I'm sure many folks did) and I was wondering how on earth you get this material? Do you phone libraries, then go there and scan the stuff? Do you know of secret online libraries of scanned ancient texts? Do you collect antiques and have one of those haunted-house-esque giant libraries in your home? Do you work in a museum/library of rare books?
I need to know, and would love pointers on attaining such material on my own!
-Nate @
www.natezomby.stumbleupon.com

peacay said...

Cheers all.

Aeron, the link is there for the complete books - I vaguely recall it wasn't too much troubled finding the illustration pages. (mind you, having the whole plate doesn't necessarily make it any clearer which insect is shown)

Megan, I found you completely by accident from a search on 'illuminated manuscript' but had remembered your site name!

Natezomby, everything is on the internet. A starting point would be those links towards the bottom of the sidebar. They will take you up to 2010 to exhaust/get through. If you want more specific info you're welcome to email me.

START TART ART said...

Hello there,
i love the alien illustrations and would be VERy interested in seeing more as I'm focusing upon them for some new paintings of mine.
could you possibly send me some links or means of tracking others down?
kind regards,
i have up most respect for your research!
SKAT

peacay said...

SKAT: http://www-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr/wiki/doku.php/auteur:schaeffer_jacob_christian

That link goes to the work in this post.

If you want similar material, then I'd suggest you wander through the science delicious links to see if any of those descriptions sound like what you are after.

START TART ART said...

thanks ever so kindly!
x

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