Pesce Donna – Historic Print
![Pesce Donna, [no date recorded on caption card] — antique engraving](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/c9/c9fa1a57d045-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
This antique engraving of Pesce Donna brings a moment of history to your wall. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Pesce Donna
Order a print
Thank you. Your order went through, and a receipt is on its way by email.
Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal
Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.
A woman-fish, as the Italian title *Pesce Donna* puts it, is the figure this engraving presents: a mermaid, shown as a marvel rather than a portrait. It appears in Antonio Cavazzi's *Istorica descrizione de' tre regni Congo, Matamba et Angola*, an account of central African kingdoms written by a Capuchin friar who spent years in the region. Printed in Bologna in 1687, the book mixed firsthand observation with reports of wonders, and plates like this one show how European readers of the period were invited to see distant lands as full of strange creatures. The record gives no date for this impression, so its exact printing history is unconfirmed.
| Created / published | [no date recorded on caption card] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : engraving. |
| Subjects | Illus. in: Antonio Cavazzi, Isoterica Descrizione..., bet. pp. 52-53. No reference copy. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card. Caption card tracings: BI--WORKS; RBD; Mermaids; Shelf. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,129 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-146373 |
More from the Historic Print Archive collection
Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.
![[Self-portrait] / Georges Rouault.](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/c3/c336da8d4e8c-400.webp)
![[Clarissa]](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/d9/d9d764a6d85b-400.webp)
