Ernst Haeckel

1834–1919

German biologist, naturalist, and philosopher, Haeckel is best known for Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), a visual compendium of intricate life forms. His illustrations of jellyfish, radiolarians, and other marine organisms helped bridge art and science and influenced both biology and Art Nouveau. Because his illustrations are artistically beautiful while at the same time being taxonomically accurate, they have become quite popular. In 2023 an original work by Ernst Haeckel was purchased at auction for  $3,262. We have used many of his designs in the products we offer here.

Marcus Elieser Bloch

1723–1799

One of the founding figures of ichthyology, Bloch's magnum opus Ichthyologie documented over 1,000 species of fish, many for the first time. His hand-colored plates remain among the most scientifically and artistically valuable fish illustrations in history. Even today, single copies of those plates sell at auction, sometimes fetching several thousand U.S. dollars each. In 2022, a lot of 10 of his drawings sold at auction for $2,944.00

Georges Cuvier

1769–1832

A founding figure of comparative anatomy and paleontology, Cuvier’s classification system revolutionized the study of animals. His detailed anatomical drawings helped set scientific standards for biological illustration for decades. He was the first to demonstrate that the different strata of rock in the Paris basin each had its own mammal fauna. Furthermore, he showed that the lower a stratum was, the more different its fossil animals were from species living in the present. Yet Cuvier rejected the idea of organic evolution.

Frédéric Cuvier

1773–1838

Brother of Georges, Frédéric Cuvier was a zoologist and museum curator known for his studies of animal behavior and mammals. Frédéric Cuvier is credited with the first scientific description of the red panda, naming it Ailurus fulgens. His illustrations and written works contributed significantly to early taxonomic literature and many of the illustrations in his brother Georges books, particularly the whale drawings, are singed F. Cuvier. Frédéric Cuvier is credited with the first scientific description of the red panda, naming it Ailurus fulgens.

Carl Linnaeus

1707–1778

The father of modern taxonomy, Linnaeus developed the binomial nomenclature system still in use today. His classification of the natural world laid the groundwork for generations of biological research and artistic depiction of species. Carolus Linnaeus’s 'Systema naturae' is still used today to help classify organisms and place them in their proper position in the hierarchical classification, or taxonomy. He names over 4,000 animal species and about 6,000 plants. (he named many noxious weeds after people whom he didn't like!)  Linnaeus was the first naturalist to include man within the animal kingdom within the class Mammalia and the order Primates. He also gave humans the scientific name Homo sapiens. Before his work, humans were often considered separate from and superior to other animals. Strangely, you won’t find many illustrations of plants and animals in Linnaeus’s works and and so now Linnaeus illustrations were used for our products but he is nonetheless included here as an important figure in the field. 

Prince Albert I of Monaco

1848–1922

A pioneering oceanographer and patron of marine science, he is often called the "father of modern oceanography".  Prince Albert I organized and led 28 oceanographic expeditions between 1885 and 1915. Nicknamed the “Scholar Prince” he was an advocate for the sciences and an environmental awareness pioneer with a passion for the ocean and founded the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco (1899) and the Oceanographic Institute in Paris (1906). His scientific publications, including Résultats des Campagnes Scientifiques, contain exquisitely detailed illustrations of marine life, from starfish to deep-sea fish. 

Adolphe Philippe Millot

1857–1921

Millot was the chief illustrator at the French National Museum of Natural History and created hundreds of chromolithographic plates for the Larousse dictionaries. His beautiful, stylized illustrations of animals, plants, and marine life are a favorite among collectors and designers.

Wilhelm Gottlieb Tilesius von Tilenau

1769–1857

Tilesius was a German physician, zoologist, and illustrator who served as the official artist and naturalist aboard the Russian expedition around the world (1803–1806). He documented numerous marine species, and his whale anatomy illustrations were among the most precise of the era.

George Kearsley Shaw 

1751-1813             AND

Frederick Polydore Nodder

1770-1801

(Illustration credits are often listed as Shaw & Nodder)

George Shaw was an English botanist and zoologist. Arguably, his most important work was The Naturalist's Miscellany published in 1799, though he has several other books on related topics. In the course of his work he also named and described many organisms himself, the best know being the Duck-Billed Platypus. However, for the illustrations of each species he turned to Frederick Nodder who was an English illustrator, engraver, painter, and publisher. Therefore, the illustrations we have chosen to use in our products were all drawn by Nodder, though Shaw deservers credit for bringing the subject matter to him.

Louis van Houtte

1810–1876

Belgian horticulturist, botanist, and publisher Louis van Houtte was a pioneering figure in 19th-century botanical illustration and plant cultivation. After founding one of the largest commercial plant nurseries in Europe near Ghent, he launched the influential journal Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe (1845–1883), which featured over 2,000 hand-colored botanical plates. These illustrations included examples of sea gardens showing corals and anemones likely because his book served as an unofficial catalog to his nurseries, which presumably included corals and anemones for home aquarium 'gardens'.

Edme Billardon-Sauvigny

1736–1812

Primarily known as a writer and dramatist, Billardon-Sauvigny also created illustrated natural history works, often collaborating with early scientific publishers. His visual style balanced Enlightenment ideals of reason with artistic flourish. The art used here is from the book pictured (no portraits of him are available) and consist mostly of various ornamental carp varieties.

Louis Renard

c.1678–1746

Renard’s Poissons, Écrevisses et Crabes was one of the earliest illustrated books on Indo-Pacific marine life. Though not a scientist, his work combined vivid imagination with observation, producing marine illustrations that are both surreal and historically significant. Though many are close to actual species, others seem to be drawn from fanciful and exaggerated tales of fishes told by  seaman of the time.