The beastiary of Aloys Zötl

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These paintings are from a beastiary compiled by the Austrian painter Aloys Zötl in the 19th Century. He was a dye maker rather than a naturalist and so the paintings are more from his imagination rather than observation which explains the unrealistic look of many of the animals.

What's I find interesting about them is how brightly colored they are compared to animal plates, with their muted colors, we are used to seeing from the 1800s. It gives them a strangely modern look in spite of the familiar composition and poses of scientific etchings from the era.

There are more after the break, and more at the Wikimedia Commons page which I found these at (via The Public Domain Review).