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Amazing Rare Things

The art of natural history in the age of discovery

MARK CATESBY (1682-1749)

The Angel-Fish

c.1722-6

RCIN 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.

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