Franz Michael Regenfuss – Shells, Plate III from Choix de Coquillages et de Crustacés, 1758 | Giclée Print

A great spotted cone stands in the middle of the sheet, chequered black on white like a piece of tilework, and around it the engraver has laid out cowries, a green thorny murex, two reticulated volutes and, at the foot, a rose-red scallop. Every shell is numbered in the margin — the plate was made for collectors who wanted to identify what they had bought. It was cut and coloured in Copenhagen in 1758 for Regenfuss's folio of shells, printed with a royal privilege that is named in the caption line at the bottom.

What this is — A giclée reproduction of a hand-coloured engraving, printed on fine art paper. It is not an original print, and it is not sold as one. The paper tone of the original is kept, not corrected.

Scale — On the 50 × 70 sheet the plate is printed at its original size, 29.0 × 42.8 cm. On the 40 × 50 sheet the same picture is reduced to 0.80×, 23.2 × 34.2 cm. Both are drawn from the 400 dpi scan of the Zurich copy, and both keep the narrow band of the old laid paper that surrounds the printed area.

The print — 200 gsm matte fine art paper, pigment inks, a white margin on all four sides, unframed, shipped rolled.

Where this comes from — Franz Michael Regenfuss (1712–1780), Auserlesne Schnecken, Muscheln und andre Schaalthiere / Choix de Coquillages et de Crustacés, Copenhagen 1758, plate III, hand-coloured engraving after Gabriel Müller, from the copy held by the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. The museum file, the measurements, and what we are allowed to sell: the record for this sheet.

From the same series — Shell Plates — Regenfuss 1758: three sheets from the same folio, built to hang together.

Further reading — Why This Print Is Not Bigger.