Artist · 5 prints
Ewald Heinrich Rübsaamen Prints
About Ewald Heinrich Rübsaamen
Ewald Heinrich Rübsaamen was a German teacher, draughtsman and naturalist, born on May 20, 1857, in Haardt near Siegen, and he died on March 17, 1919, in Metternich. He began studying mathematics in Karlsruhe but left after four semesters to train as an artist, then worked as an art and school teacher in the Siegen area while teaching himself botany and zoology. In the 1890s he moved to Berlin, where he worked at the Museum für Naturkunde, the city's natural history museum.
Rübsaamen's own research centered on gall midges, tiny flies whose larvae cause swellings called galls on plants, and he described many new species. His skill with a pen also made him a natural-history illustrator, and he drew marine animals such as deep-sea octopuses and squid for scientific publications. In 1909 he took charge of the Rhineland's state program against phylloxera, a pest that devastates grapevines, and in 1912 he was given the title of professor. In 1917 he was elected to the Leopoldina, Germany's oldest academy of sciences.
Ewald Heinrich Rübsaamen prints: reproductions of the scientific illustrations of deep-sea octopuses and squid that Ewald Heinrich Rübsaamen drew in the 1910s. The collection includes Histioteuthis rüppellii (1910), Cirrothauma murrayi (1915), Polypus levis (1915) and two plates of Velodona togata (Plates LXXV and LXXVI, 1915).
The selection is made up entirely of cephalopods, drawn as specimen plates for scientific publications. Each plate shows the animal in exact detail against a plain ground, recording fins, suckers, webbing and skin texture for identification. The two Velodona togata plates show the same species and hang well as a pair. Outside a textbook, they read as unusual animal portraits.
The pale grounds and fine linework suit bathrooms, studies, kitchens and coastal homes, and a set of three or more works well as a grid on one wall. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with low-glare acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
