Georg August Goldfuss.

Equus Hemionus [Onager].

23 x 18 inches

This is no common or garden ass or donkey as one might first assume; it is an extremely rare breed of onager or (to give it it's even more exciting name) Asiatic Wild Ass! So scarce have these animals become in their native Asia that they have been afforded the status of a threatened species. Goldfuss (1782-1848) was an astonishing man by any standards and his achievements in the worlds of palaeontology and zoology are legion. He lived and worked in Germany and early on in his academic career completed a doctorate on the South African Beetle. He would go on to achieve great things as a professor but what concerns us here is his monumental work producing 454 lithographs of animals between 1824 and 1843. He released around 20 prints per year so people would subscribe on an annual basis. There are no known complete editions of the ''Naturalist Atlas'' so individual images are much sought after.