Shaw + Nodder 1792 Ambystoma Mexicanum (Mole Salamander) Hand-Colored Copper Engraving vintage cloth doll Hard-scrabble feeling

Hard-scrabble feeling

I didn't realize quite how great this box was until I went to pack up a whole bunch of odds and ends of a variety of shapes and sizes---they all  wound up fitting neatly and safely inside of it

a pot of blooming flowers right at the center--and indeed one hopes Ellis made it to see his 20th year

Switzerland

168 numbered pages

Shaw + Nodder 1792 Ambystoma Mexicanum (Mole Salamander) Hand-Colored Copper Engraving vintage cloth doll Hard-scrabble feelingThis is a striking and wonderfully surreal looking hand colored Shaw and Nodder copper engraving of a Mole Salamader, or Ambystoma Mexicanum, dated 1792. Recently, I found a couple of Shaw and Nodder engravings that had been enhanced with additional watercoloring and annotation by a holder of them in the first half of the 19th century; that is not the case here, but those heightened my awareness of them, and then I found this one in Vermont this week.