Sammlung auserlesener Vögel und Schmetterlinge
A hand-coloured natural history book of birds and butterflies, compiled by Jacob Hübner and published in Germany in 1793 for naturalists and collectors. Its plates show perched songbirds on bare twigs with small insects in the air, painted in fine, flat, slightly stylised colour with careful attention to plumage markings. A designer might draw on the crisp botanical-style branches, the warm earth-toned paper, and the vivid red, blue and green plumage as a palette for period-style prints.
