The Artist:
Georges-Frédéric Rötig was a French painter and draughtsman who established himself as a major figure in wildlife art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Born in Paris in 1873, he developed an early fascination for wild and domestic fauna, which was to become the core of his work. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he followed the teachings of masters such as Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme, two influential figures of academic realism.

Rötig is particularly renowned for his detailed studies of animals: majestic elephants, impressive birds of prey, expressive hunting dogs. His drawings and paintings, imbued with anatomical precision and an acute sensitivity to animal behavior, reflect a deep understanding of his subjects. Through a variety of media, including drawing, watercolor and sometimes oil, he virtuously captures the musculature, attitudes and energy of each species. He devotes much of his career to observing and depicting animals in their natural environment, often with almost scientific attention.

From 1894, he exhibited regularly at the Salon des artistes français, winning an honorable mention in 1898, a third medal in 1902 and a second medal in 1904. In 1922, Georges-Frédéric Rötig was awarded the prestigious Prix Rosa Bonheur, a distinction created in tribute to the famous 19th-century animal painter. The prize is awarded to artists who continue the legacy of Rosa Bonheur, whose work set new standards in the realistic depiction of animals. This recognition further establishes Rötig's reputation and underlines her role in the continuity of this French artistic tradition.

Today, Rötig's works are appreciated as much for their technical mastery as for their aesthetic and documentary dimension. His works can be found in many private collections and museums, where they continue to fascinate with their authenticity and liveliness.
 (h/t Segoura Fine Art)

The Plates & Technique:
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique in which an artist cuts an image into the endgrain block of very hard wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively low pressure. To carve a woodblock, you had to cut away everything but the part you wanted to print. The areas of the design that show ink when printed are those left uncut on the surface of the wood block. By contrast, ordinary engraving, like etching, uses a metal plate for the matrix and is printed by the intaglio method, where the ink fills the valleys, the removed areas. As a result of the relatively lower pressure used to print, the blocks for wood engravings deteriorate less quickly than the copper plates of engravings, and may have a distinctive white-on-black character. 

Thomas Bewick developed the wood engraving technique in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century. His work differed from earlier woodcuts in two key ways. First, rather than using woodcarving tools such as knives & gouges, Bewick used an engraver's burin (graver). With this, he could create thin delicate lines, often creating large dark areas in the composition. Second, wood engraving traditionally uses the wood's end grain—while the older technique used the softer side grain. The resulting increased hardness and durability facilitated fantastically detailed images. 

By the mid-19th century, many wood engravings rivaled copperplate engravings in their detail. A further innovation was the transfering of photographs carved by hand into the wood, known as 'Photoxylographs'. Before the advent of photolithography, newspapers used wood engravings to make photographic reproductions, where an artist "meticulously traced the photograph upon the surface of a block of boxwood or other suitable tree, then used a sharp tool to cut out the troughs (the white part of the photo) from the wood. The remaining lines for the black ink stayed 'type high.' A workman rolled or daubed a layer of ink over the incised surface, laid a sheet of paper on it, pressed it down with a roller, pulled the paper away from the sticky substance," and the result was a printed image.

A later advancement of this technique I've read about, was to apparently coat the wood block in emulsion, & expose the negative film directly onto the block, & carve it all by hand from there. 

Condition:
Good condition, typical antiquarian artifacts, some faint spotting to edges, mostly lower left. Overall a well-preserved plate.

These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book & handled, etc.  Please examine the photos & details carefully.

Text Page(s): This one comes without original text pages. I've included a scan of a cover-page from one of the volumes, it's for reference & not part of the listing.

Size: 10-1/2" x 13-3/4" approximately.

Combined Shipping:
Yes! Multiple prints can be combined into one package. Larger prints may need to be shipped in tube. eBay should auto-combine your items if you put all of your selections into your shopping cart & check out all together as one order. If you purchase them individually, eBay charges shipping on each, which I then will need to refund after. If you're assessed multiple shipping charges for one combined package, I will endeavor to refund any overage asap.

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