Peixes do Brasil

About this book

"Fishes of Brazil" presents for the first time the complete set of watercolors of marine and freshwater fishes elaborated by Jacques Burkhardt. This is the largest collection of Brazilian fish drawings by a single artist, of which only a small portion has been published to date. Burkhardt was part of the Thayer Expedition, conceived and led by the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, with whom he toured the Brazilian territory between 1865 and 1866. Burkhardt's watercolors were not limited to artistic aspects, they included important information, such as dates and locations, as well as handwritten notes, some of them, made by Agassiz. Professors Heraldo Antonio Britski and José Lima de Figueiredo contextualized this political and social moment in Brazil, rescuing its history. The book reproduces 521 fully drawn fish watercolors and dozens of details of their bodies, 133 are marine fish mostly from the coast of Rio de Janeiro and some of the Belém do Pará area. Most of the drawings are freshwater fish from the Amazon.