The Hippopotamus. Hand coloured lithograph by William Cornwallis Harris. 1842. R3,000

This hand coloured lithograph is Plate XII (Hippopotamus Amphibius – The Hippopotamus) from Captain Sir William Cornwallis Harris's seminal work, Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa, published in London between 1840 and 1842.

Historical & Bibliographical Context

 First In-Situ Field Depictions of Southern African Wildlife: Prior to Cornwallis Harris’s expedition into the interior of Southern Africa (1836–1837), most European natural history illustrations of African megafauna were drawn from taxidermy mounts, skeletal remains, or secondhand travelers' sketches. Harris—an officer in the British East India Company Engineers—was an accomplished artist who sketched the animals directly from life in their natural habitats.

 Landmark of Victorian Colour Lithography: The folio is celebrated as one of the finest natural history works ever produced on African fauna. The plates were lithographed by Frank Howard and painstakingly hand-coloured, capturing both the anatomical detail of the animals and the atmospheric landscapes of the 19th-century South African interior.

 Historical Range & Habitat: In the accompanying text for Plate XII, Harris documented encountering hippopotamuses in abundance along the Limpopo River basin, describing how their nocturnal snorting and splashing dominated the riverbanks—a stark historic contrast to the drastically reduced natural ranges of South African megafauna by the late 19th century.

This page has been restored and recoloured; there is still a trace of mount board burn around the image.
550mm x 370mm

R3,000