Koala mother and her offspring cling to a Eucalyptus tree: a pair of the Australian plant-eating marsupials depicted in a square format detail of a rare early 1900s German chromolithograph print of a painting by wildlife artist, Karl Ludwig Hartig (1879-1947). Exclusive high resolution scan of original book plate illustrating the (1911-18) 4th edition of Brehms Tierleben (Brehm’s Animal Life).


Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus): square format detail of early 1900s painting signed by German wildlife artist Karl Ludwig Hartig (1879-1947), published in the revised 4th edition (1911-18) of ‘Brehms Tierleben’ (Brehm’s Animal Life). The Tierleben or Thierleben first appeared in 1860 as a 10-volume zoological reference work or encyclopaedia under the direction of zoologist, writer and traveller Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829-1884). By 1911, it had grown to 13 volumes. Karl Ludwig Hartig was born in 1879 at Blankenhagen, Pomerania, and died in Lübeck, Germany, in 1947, aged 67. He contributed several wildlife paintings to editions of Brehms Tierleben and other artworks attributed to him appear occasionally at auction. Koalas (inaccurately also known as Koala Bears) are tree-living, plant-eating marsupials native to Australia and are recognised worldwide as as an Australian national symbol. They have stout, tailless bodies and large heads with distinctive round, fluffy ears and spoon-shaped noses. The Koala is the only surviving representative of the family Phascolarctidae, with wombats their closest living relatives. Koalas live in coastal areas of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, typically in Eucalyptus woodland, as the leaves of these trees make up most of their diet. This image comes from our exclusive high resolution scan of an original early 1900s full colour book plate. Our scan is available in three versions on : the full page with its original title and white borders, the full colour illustration without any borders or title and, lastly, a square crop of part of the artwork.


Size: 7746px × 7746px
Location: Germany
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

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