Vintage black and white drawing of a giraffe eating. The detail is wonderful for this type of printed image – they are often a bit blurred and the details are not as crisp – on this one, we can even see the tufts of hair going down the giraffe’s neck.
There was a time that naturalists assumed that giraffe would get down on their knees to reach watering holes or food on the ground. As this giraffe drawing shows, giraffes spread their front legs wide and bend their necks down between their legs to reach the ground.
This picture is signed in the bottom-left hand corner but I can’t make it out. It is part of Alfred Edmund Brehm’s (1829 – 1884) large work on the animals of the world. Brehm was a talented artist in his own right, but based on the signature it would appear this drawing is someone else’s work. I don’t know the exact publication date of the edition this giraffe drawing is from, but all of the volumes of Brehm’s work are considered to be in the public domain.
No artist was credited within the text of Het Leven der Dieren Deel 1 from the 1800s.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
