Collection: Octopus and Squid prints

Nineteenth-century naturalists drew the octopus before anyone had photographed one alive, and it shows: the plates sit somewhere between scientific record and sea monster. Arms coil off the edge of the page, suckers are counted one by one, and the colour was guessed at from specimens already fading in alcohol.

That tension is exactly why they work as decoration. An octopus plate is strange enough to be a talking point and graphic enough to hold a wall on its own — which is why it has become the standard bathroom print, and also why it does better in a study or above a bar than most people expect.

Explore our natural history prints and our vintage animal prints.