Poissons Colorés

Louis Renard (1678-1746) was French but moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands where he became a well-known book dealer and publisher. He is best-known for his most colourful and detailed book on fish, Histoire naturelle des plus rares curiositez de la mer des Indes, from 1754. He detailed marine life from the oceans close to Indonesia. 

The illustrations in the book are very extravagant in their colouring and at the time Renard maintained this was true to nature. We are however a bit wiser and know now that some of the colouring was greatly exaggerated and even some of the fish are totally made up!