John Jonston (1603–1675) - Dromedary and Camel – Engraving (17th Century)

This zoological plate depicts two camels in naturalistic landscape settings: the single-humped dromedary and the two-humped Bactrian camel. One animal stands upright while the other rests on the ground with its legs folded beneath it, a characteristic posture that the engraver captures with evident care. Fine, closely worked lines describe the shaggy, woolly hide, the shape of the humps, the long curved neck and the broad, padded feet adapted to desert terrain. The harnesses and trappings draw attention to the camel's long-standing role as a beast of burden on the trade routes of Asia and Africa. The combination of anatomical observation with references to human use reflects the broad interests of seventeenth-century natural history, which recorded not only the form of animals but also their place in human life and commerce. The plate comes from the Historiae Naturalis de Quadrupedibus, the volume on four-footed animals in John Jonston's zoological encyclopaedia, published in Frankfurt am Main around 1650 by the Merian publishing house. Its copperplates, engraved by Matthäus Merian the Younger and Caspar Merian, are admired for their clarity and decorative quality and helped make the work one of the most popular natural history books of its time.

John Jonston (1603–1675) was born in Szamotuły in Greater Poland to a family of Scottish origin. A gifted student, he travelled widely through the academic centres of Northern Europe before qualifying as a physician. He devoted his career to medicine and scholarship, publishing works on natural history, medicine and the history of nature's wonders. Combining encyclopaedic breadth with careful organisation, his Historiae Naturalis offered one of the most complete illustrated surveys of the animal kingdom available before the eighteenth century and was reissued in numerous editions and translations.

Artist or Maker: John Jonston
Dimensions: Approximately 34 cm x 20 cm.
Medium: Engraving.
Date: 17th Century.
SKU: PLA-0930-2

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