Paradisus Terrestris - 1656

Magnificent wood engraving signed by A. Switzer, probably the son of the more famous Christopher Switzer, dated "London 1656" with a depiction of the Earthly Paradise.

The image places God high among the clouds with two blowing angels at the sides; the Paradise is imagined as a flowering garden, an orchard and a fruit garden composed of plants recently introduced to England, among which pineapple, cactus and cyclamen.
Adam is shown gathering fruit from a tree, while Eve picks strawberries.
Among the trees appears a medieval curiosity: the vegetable lamb. Described for the first time in Sir John Mandeville's Travels in 1357, it was believed that at the top of its stalks sheep would be born which fed on the surrounding vegetation until it was exhausted, at which point the plant and the sheep would die.

The sheet appears slightly browned, as is common with English papers of the seventeenth century, overall well preserved, though it has short and somewhat ragged margins.

Careful and prompt dispatch.