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Johann Baptist Zwecker

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Johann Baptist Zwecker

Johann Baptist Zwecker (1814–1876) was a German illustrator of books and magazines.

Life and work

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'Speke introduces Grant to the Queen-Dowager of Uganda', Harper's Magazine, April 1864

Zwecker studied art in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, Germany. Around 1860 he set up a studio in London with Joseph Wolf.

He illustrated children's books including Hans Christian Andersen's The Ice-Maiden (Richard Bentley, 1863), as well as tales of adventure such as African Hunting and Adventure... by William Charles Baldwin. He also worked for magazines. He is however best known for his artwork for natural history books including Alfred Russel Wallace's The Geographical Distribution of Animals.[1] His greatest work was to illustrate John George Wood's Popular Natural History (Routledge, 1871) in three volumes.[2]

Among his works are The Hartebeest, 1862; Arrival at the Depôt at Cooper's Creek, 1862; Ostrich Hunting, 1862; and A Race for Life in a Jungle, 1862.[3] He produced the first surviving image of the Icelandic Fjallkonan ('lady of the mountains').

Works illustrated by Zwecker

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"Three Little Mice", from J. W. Elliott, Nursery Rhymes And Nursery Songs, 1870.
"The lady of the mountain" (Fjallkonan), a symbol of Iceland, frontispiece to Jón Árnason's Icelandic Legends, 1866

Notes

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  1. ^ This was the first children's book written by G. A. Henty. The four main characters are named after his own children. It was published in 1870, even though the title page says 1871, a common marketing tactic for children's books at the time.

References

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  1. ^ "The Thylacine in Art". NaturalWorlds. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  2. ^ "Johann Baptist Zwecker". Aberystwyth University School of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  3. ^ "Illustrator: Johann Baptist Zwecker". Database of Mid-Victorian wood-engraved Illustration. 2007. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  4. ^ Newbolt, Peter (1996). "Books written by Henty: 4. Out on the Pampas". G.A. Henty, 1832-1902 : a bibliographical study of his British editions, with short accounts of his publishers, illustrators and designers, and notes on production methods used for his books. Brookfield, Vt.: Scholar Press. pp. 5–6. ISBN 9781859282083. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
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