Amazing Rare Things
The art of natural history in the age of discovery
MARK CATESBY (1682-1749)
The Angel-Fish
c.1722-6RCIN 925976
A watercolour of an angel fish, in profile to left.
The colours of fish fade rapidly when dead, and Catesby records that he ‘painted [them] at different times, having a succession of them procured while the former lost their Colours’. For the angel fish, which was one of the strangest-looking fish he had encountered, he used gold paint for the edges of the scales.