HENRY DE LA BECHE’S 1829–1830 LITHOGRAPH, DURIA ANTIQUIOR

Abstract

Duria antiquior [A more ancient Dorsetshire], the famous reconstruction of life in the early Jurassic seas of southern England by Henry Thomas De la Beche (1796–1855) was prepared in collaboration with William Buckland (1784–1856) as a watercolor and published as a lithograph in late 1829 or early 1830. Sales of the lithograph were intended to provide some financial assistance to the professional fossil collector and dealer Mary Anning (1799–1847) who had discovered many of the fossils it illustrated. The published lithograph differs in several respects from De la Beche’s original watercolor and several states of the lithograph exist: an early state, simply bearing the title, and a later state with the addition of an annotated key. The early state exists in both hand-colored and uncolored variants, while the later annotated state shows several variants identifiable by narrow or wide fonts of the printed text.