The Catfish – Mark Catesby

A catfish with a dark back, a striped belly and long whiskers. Mark Catesby draws it in profile across the whole sheet: a broad flat head, small round eyes, a slate-blue back fading into a pale belly crossed by dark bands, and above all the long barbels that curl out from its mouth like a cat’s whiskers and give the fish its name.

Catfish live on the muddy bottoms of rivers and lakes, where they find their food by touch and taste with those barbels. Catesby, who described the fish of the American colonies from life, gives this one the presence of a portrait, with no setting at all, which makes it a very modern image today.

Mark Catesby, naturalist of the New World

Mark Catesby (1683-1749) was an English naturalist who explored Virginia, Carolina and the Bahamas between 1712 and 1726. He etched the plates of his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands himself and coloured them by hand, creating the first great illustrated natural history of North America, a model for Audubon a century later.

• Artist: Mark Catesby (1683-1749)
• Date: published 1754 (second edition)
• Technique: etching and engraving, hand-coloured
• Source: The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, vol. II, plate 23
• Format: horizontal
• Theme: catfish, freshwater fish, rivers

A witty piece for a bathroom, a kitchen or a fishing enthusiast’s study. See it alongside The Croaker and the Squirrelfish and The Porgy, or in our bathroom wall art collection. Printed on thick matte archival paper, in 13 sizes from A4 to A0. Free shipping, no minimum order. Shipped rolled in a sturdy tube.