New Zealand Antique Prints
& Rare Books

The On-line
Gallery

Books may also be seen at:


New Zealand Birds’
(The Greytown Gallery)

101 Main Street
Post Office Box 146
Greytown, 5742
Wairarapa
New Zealand

Telephone 0064 6 304 8080 narena@nzbirds.com

Charles Catton’s Animals drawn from nature (drawings “from nature”) were done in the late eighteenth century and show exotic and domestic animals. The prints were made by aquatint etching, an elaborate process popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. This is the earliest use of aquatint for a work on natural history (Prideaux p289). The use of aquatint gives these prints a delicate detail and texture that well captures the charm of the original drawings. The prints were originally issued in 1788 in London and then in the early nineteenth century the original plates somehow made it to New Haven where the series was reprinted by H. Howe, a local bookseller and publisher. Both editions are quite rare and the prints are most unusual.

We have no Catton prints available at present. However, you may see images by Charles Catton in our ARCHIVE