Title: Watercolour of Tetragonolepis angulifer Agassiz

Creator: Joseph Dinkel [1806-1891]

Description: The fossil fish Tetragonolepis angulifer Agassiz, from volume 2 of JLR Agassiz’s Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles. This specimen was found by John Greaves in his stone quarry in Wilmerts, near Stratford-upon-Avon, around 1830.

Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz was a Swiss scientist interested in the fields of palaeontology, zoology and geomorphology. For over a decade he devoted his time to researching fossil fish. The Geological Society played a large part in assisting him in this research, awarding him a prize fund and asking its Fellows to send in examples of fossil fish. These specimens were allocated a room in the Society’s apartments where Agassiz’s principal artist, Joseph Dinkel, among others, came to capture them on paper throughout the 1830s. Five volumes of his celebrated work Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (‘Research on Fossil Fish’) were published between 1833 and 1843, with extensive illustrations.

Date: 1834

Format: Watercolour, with ink wash scale details

Archive reference: LDGSL/613/2/56/1

Image reference: 16-04

Original size: 5837cm x 32.5cm

Recommended print size: Up to 70 x 50cm